Tag: rant

I’m getting these questions about Marx, again, over on Big Orange.  “You’re against capitalism; are you some kind of marxist?” they ask.  To me it doesn’t really matter: either I am a marxist or I’m not a marxist, depending on whether or not the gang affiliation of “being a marxist” means a lot to the person asking the question.  But here’s a diary about old Moor, his chicken-scratchings, and his legacy.

OK, so this isn’t going to go away.  I wrote a long diary on this last year, but I can see it’s time for another one.

(Reposted from Big Orange (and rewritten a bit) for the viewing pleasure of the Docudharma people)

When the Republicans are NOT in the majority in the Senate, being partisan hack obstructionists that give not one damn about what happens to the American people or the country of America as long as they can point to the Democrats in the majority and say “look, nothing is getting done” is what they are all about.

For the Republicans in the Senate, the entirety of the incredible amount of issues that our country is facing at this time is nothing more than another wonderful invitation to play politics with the country and continue to thumb their collective nose at the middle class and the needs of working families in America.  Considering they were the majority party in power when all, and I mean ALL of the foundation was set for the myriad destructive economical, societal, ecological and constitutional destructive policies that has been visited upon our country and its people were enacted, one might think they would be a bit more interested in assisting cleaning up those messes that we can now SEE with our own eyes and feel with each passing day weighing down on people like a ton of bricks.

(This is Cross-posted from Daily Kos; I thought some people here might be interested in it.  It’s got more than the Recommended Daily Allowance of meta.  I didn’t bother rewriting it here; I think y’all can figure out that I’m not talking about this site.  If that really bothers people, please let me know and I’ll keep it in mind when I think about cross-posting.)

Every once in a while in my more than three years here I have felt the need to compose a rant against my fellow members of this site that will pretty much ensure I don’t get invited to any good cocktail parties.  Never more so than tonight.

This, at its best — including leading up to last month — has been a site of political actors.  Leading up to tonight, it was a site of political observers.  A site not of people trying to change the system, but of posers who want to chatter on about change.

If Paul Carmouche loses in LA-04 — and I doubt that either provisional ballots nor a recount will reverse a 356-vote, .038% margin, unless it turns out that the last few come-from-behind votes were obtained by fraud — then it was entirely foreseeable and entirely preventable.

We simply had to choose to act.  We chose not to act.  We should be ashamed.

We seem to have forgotten what this site is about.

I wrote this and posted it on Progressive Blue and Daily Kos yesterday.  I think many people agree.  I was asked to post here at DD.

As incredible as that may sound, President George W. Bush tells us in an interview with his sister, Doro Bush Koch, that not only did he not sell his soul while making difficult decisions in the White House, he actually told her that “I darn sure wasn’t going to sacrifice my values.”

Oh Really?  What values might that be, Sir?  The values you learned growing up that included do unto others before they do it to you?  Art for art’s sake, money for God’s sake?  Profits before People?  Repeat the lie over and over again until it becomes common knowledge that the lie is fact?  Sulk at all times when not given exactly what you want and then try to do damage to whatever or whomever that didn’t agree with you (like the American people, Georgie)?

J*#@%s F&(#%+g C&$!@t!  From tomorrow’s NYT:

The Labor Department is racing to complete a new rule, strenuously opposed by President-elect Barack Obama, that would make it much harder for the government to regulate toxic substances and hazardous chemicals to which workers are exposed on the job.

snip

Public health officials and labor unions said the rule would delay needed protections for workers, resulting in additional deaths and illnesses.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11…

cross posted from The Dream Antilles

In Ireland, I am informed, they have some venerable traditions about drinking.  When you go to a party, you bring two bottles: one for tonight, and one for the host at a later time.  You uncork the one for tonight and throw away the cork.  That way the bottle will have to be consumed tonight.

And so we celebrate the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States.  Let’s drink the entire bottle.  Let’s deal with the hangover.  And then, let’s go back to work.

Join me with Advil below.

experience is unconditional.

i heard this guy, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, say that in a video in Edger’s essay Been a Long Time Coming.

it was like someone hit a bell and the clarity and simplicity of its sound keeps reverberating in my head.

experience is unconditional. how simple: that which happens to us happens.  

what, then, are the mechanisms that condition our experience?

i’ve been thinking about this in the context, of say poking fun at Sarah Palin (she doesn’t seem to realize Africa is a continent).

Is it dismissive or disdainful when I label 59 million people who voted (a second time) for bush as stupid?

i wonder how our reactions to those of others might condition experience and the ensuing interactions among us. what am i filtering out that makes it near impossible for me to understand teaching creationism as science? it isn’t so much that i mind another view point, but come on. it is religion. not science. or is it?

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.