Friday, September 26, 2008

Your next president, when McCain dies of Melanoma





"Palin once blessed to be free from 'witchcraft'

Updated Thu. Sep. 25 2008 6:36 AM ET

The Associated Press

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- A grainy YouTube video surfaced Wednesday showing Sarah Palin being blessed in her hometown church three years ago by a Kenyan pastor who prayed for her protection from "witchcraft" as she prepared to seek higher office.

The video shows Palin standing before Bishop Thomas Muthee in the pulpit of the Wasilla Assembly of God church, holding her hands open as he asked Jesus Christ to keep her safe from "every form of witchcraft."

"Come on, talk to God about this woman. We declare, save her from Satan," Muthee said as two attendants placed their hands on Palin's shoulders. "Make her way my God. Bring finances her way even for the campaign in the name of Jesus. ... Use her to turn this nation the other way around."

Palin filed campaign papers a few months later, in October 2005, and was elected governor the next year. "


http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/undergod/2008/09/palins_new_pastor_problem.html

Pwned Debate 1

Obama called McCain on every lie.

Let me say it again.

He took control for most of the debate. Whenever McCain
lied, he called him on it. And he kept going back to what he'd do to
fix the mess McCain and the Republicans left in their wake. I think he
won the thing.

McCain looked sickly and a little befuddled to me except for that one
time he rattled off leaders of iron curtain countries. And he kept
repeating his campaign phrases, over and over.


Reply



Wow... I saw Obama crush him.

Obama looked Presidential, forceful, and clearly explained his side.

McCain was whiney and arrogant.

- Porter


We TiVoed it. We kept scores for each round. The first few rounds on economy Obama won. Then they went to Iraq Afghanistan Iran soviet union. I think McCain had a bit more edge on the foreign policy subject but what I notice is that my audience just tuned out because it was foreign policy and nobody cared. So in this regard obama lucked out. People were glued to the tube when it was the economy.

So now we still have about 30 min pf tivp to go and the viewing party degenerated into "every time we hear Georgia we drink"!

Sent from my iPhone


The other thing is u have to look at it from the eyes of bubba from Kansas. I think they tuned out after the first 15 minutes. The first 15 minutes I think obama had an edge

Sent from my iPhone

More Bush Shenanigans





So they're asking for 700 Billion dollars to bail out these financial institutions that gave bad mortgages, sliced and diced those bad mortgages into packages that were used to build other funds so the entire thing was a big ponzi scheme.

This all happened because for the last 8 years the Republicans have screamed that all regulations are the work of the devil and that the ONLY way for all the money that they gave to the rich and corporations to trickle down to the "common man" was by letting the market run wild.

A Lot of people made a Lot of money.

Now, the same people (McCain) who never saw a deregulation scheme they didn't support are screaming about greed and how regulation is needed. Obama was actually calling for real oversight in 2006, but he was called a socialist for even suggesting it.

This is a final fuck you from Bush (hopefully final, as in he and his ilk actually intend on leaving office). They've allowed the market to fuck things up so badly that they're framing it as the apocalypse, an impending depression, worldwide economic collapse. It reminds me a lot of the WMD lies that got us into Iraq so they could make a fuckload of money (or just outright steal it). It reminds me of the Patriot Act where this administration saw an opening to flame the fire of fear and take unlimited power. They are the ultimate opportunistic cynicists. It is all about them taking your money.

We need to do exactly the opposite of what McCain and the republicans have done for the last 8 years .

We need to rollback the tax breaks on the wealthy.
We need to tax corporations and regulate them.
We need to curtail CEO salaries and payouts.

You can just imagine Bush and company, hoping the chickens wouldn't come home to roost for another 6 months. Even though the mechanics are different, the last Bush left us with the Savings and Loan crisis. In 1979 Republicans pushed the deregulation of the SnLs. 8 years of Regan and 2 of Bush Sr. Later, we had a 1.6 Billion dollar bailout. The friends of the Republicans (including Bush jr.s brother Neil, with the Silverado Savings and Loan) and John MCCain who was part of the Keating 5, "five U.S. senators (Alan Cranston, Don Riegle, Dennis DeConcini, John Glenn & John McCain) were implicated in an influence-peddling scheme".

Now, we've got another Bush and a 700 Billion dollar bailout.

I've heard this is a conspiracy to put the final nail in the US economy so that if Obama wins, he will be so curtailed that there will be no money to do anything like fix health care, shore up Social Security, invest in oil independence.

But that's just so cynical.

http://www.womenforjohnmccain.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/k5album-298x300.jpg

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Another Bush, but worse...




"John McCain's presidential campaign has shielded the first-term Alaska governor for weeks from spontaneous questions from voters and reporters, and went to striking lengths Tuesday to maintain that distance as Palin made her diplomatic debut."

The whole story is here.

Palin meets her first world leaders in New York

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ijGq94pVTj9FGiR-c5EdA3iSm2owD93CLG600

Friday, September 19, 2008

White Priviledge


This is Your Nation on White Privilege


September, 14 2008

By Tim Wise

For those who still can't grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.

* White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because "every family has challenges," even as black and Latino families with similar "challenges" are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

* White privilege is when you can call yourself a "fuckin' redneck," like Bristol Palin's boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll "kick their fuckin' ass," and talk about how you like to "shoot shit" for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.

* White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.

* White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don't all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you're "untested."

* White privilege is being able to say that you support the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it's good enough for me," and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the "under God" part wasn't
added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.

* White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you. White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was "Alaska first," and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she's being disrespectful.

* White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you're being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you're somehow being mean, or even sexist.

* White privilege is being able to convince white women who don't even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a "second look."

* White privilege is being able to fire people who didn't support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.

* White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in
speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God's punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you're just a good church-going Christian, but if you're black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you're an extremist who probably hates America.

* White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a "trick question," while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O'Reilly means you're dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.

* White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it, a "light" burden.

And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren't sure about that whole "change" thing. Ya know, it's just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and
certain.

White privilege is, in short, the problem.

----------------------

Tim Wise is the author of White Like Me (Soft Skull, 2005, revised 2008), and of Speaking Treason Fluently, publishing this month, also by Soft Skull. For review copies or interview requests, please reply to publicity@softskull.com

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Palin Comparison



more of the same.. using yahoo to circumvent having to use her official account for business purposes, refusing subpoenas in Troopergate... telling everyone in the Alaskan government to not co-operate with the investigation. Sounds like Bush / Rove / Cheney to me.

Now that's change, for sure.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Barack has your back




John McCain wants to keep the tax cuts George Bush enacted for the richest Americans who have so much money invested that they live off of the interest from their investments... and money is never something they even give a thought to.

John McCain wants to give another tax cut to corporations like the oil industry... he says all that extra billions of dollars will trickle down to you.

That hasn't worked in the last 8 years and John McCain knows that.

He and the people who are helping to get him into power know that. They keep getting richer and richer and they will stop at nothing to maintain their power. They will not give up what they have taken from you.

Barack Obama will give a tax break to you if you are a laborer or a carpenter or if you work at Walmart or Target or are a painter or ironworker or a tech guy or a nurse or cabbie or chef or retail manager. He'll give you a break if you're in middle management or a project lead or a paralegal, a city planner or a teacher.

Barack Obama wants to give a tax cut to the 90 % of Americans who come home tired, who give at least 8 hours a day of their existence to those people who live off their interest. He knows that we aren't a serfdom. He wants to undo the damage Bush and his cronies have inflicted on the American dream.

And he will. Barack has your back. All the rest is lies.

Up is Down, War is Peace, Republicans are the party of Change



For the love of.... We gotta win this one. If we don't we will have proved that 95% of those who voted are fucking morons and that'd be 1/2 our country.

The people who need to stay in control, the rich, the criminals who can't allow what they've done to become public, the religious nuts who are banking the republicans will bring about the end of the world will all vote McCain Palin. The rest of us would have to be out of our minds to vote for those two.



(from a friend at NBC/CNBC)
PK

********

I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....

If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're 'exotic' and 'different.'

Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, you're an American story.

If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.

Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, and you're a maverick.

Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.

Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, then you're well- grounded.

If you spend 3 years as a community organizer, become the first black President of the Harvard Law Review, help register 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional Law professor, 8 years as a State Senator of a district of 750,000 people, chair the state Senate's Health and Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate representing a state of 13 million people, sponsor 131 bills, and serve on the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works, and Veteran's Affairs committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.

If your resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city council and 6 years as the mayor of a town of 7,000 people, 2 years as governor of a state of 650,000 people, you're qualified to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising 2 daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real Christian.

If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, left your ill wife, and married the heiress the next month, you're a Christian.

If you teach responsible, age-appropriate sex education, including the use of birth control, you erode the fiber of American society.

If you staunchly advocate abstinence-only education, while your teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're responsible.

If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city community, then gave that up to raise a family, you don't represent America's family values.

If your husband is called 'First Dude', has a DWI conviction, didn't register to vote until 25, and was a member of a group that advocated secession of Alaska from the USA, yours is the quintessential American family.

And, finally, if you're famous for your quick temper, you're the one to have your finger on the red nuclear button.

OK, much clearer now.



image: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/BushMcCain.jpg

Heinz Soup



Most husbands nowadays have stopped beating their wives.

From the good old days when conservatives ran the world...

thanks to sa_Steve on Flikr http://flickr.com/photos/sa_steve/

Terror and Oil




Fri, June 27, 2008 - 10:40 PM

Charlie Black, one of John McCain’s top aides mentioned the obvious,

In Fortune Magazine, http://money.cnn.com/2008/06/20/magazines/fortune/Evolution_McCain_Whitford.fortune/
From the article:

“On national security McCain wins. We saw how that might play out early in the campaign, when one good scare, one timely reminder of the chaos lurking in the world, probably saved McCain in New Hampshire, a state he had to win to save his candidacy - this according to McCain's chief strategist, Charlie Black. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December was an "unfortunate event," says Black. "But his knowledge and ability to talk about it reemphasized that this is the guy who's ready to be Commander-in-Chief. And it helped us." As would, Black concedes with startling candor after we raise the issue, another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. "Certainly it would be a big advantage to him," says Black.”

This is typical NeoCon wishful thinking. GW Bush was the idiot president until the 911 attacks happened on his watch, attacks that his yet to be dismantled intelligence departments warned him about in that August 6, 2001, memo titled, “Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bin_Laden_Determined_to_Strike_in_U.S.. And that attack, that changed our nation forever could have, and probably would have been foiled on Bill Clinton’s watch, but for the NeoCons who were emboldened after stealing the 2000 election, it was a $GOD$ send,

We all know the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) had written that their goals of a new Pax Americana with the Us controlling all oil resources of the world could not happen “absent some catastrophic catalyzing event –like a new Pearl Harbor”.
http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf

Interestingly, the PNAC has done away with their website (above) and even though a search for “Pearl Harbor Project for the new American century” on Google, still returns a Wikipedia page as the first result, that page has been sanitized and that particular quote has been disappeared.

Search for it yourself. You’ll see.

Ah, but this is all just conspiracy theory. Crazy talk. There’s no way that the current administration has any plans to allow another psychotic Islamic fundamentalist attack to happen right before the elections so that any hope we may have of taking back our country from these criminals might happen as our founding fathers envisioned our escape from tyranny would be set into stone. Haven’t they stolen enough of our money? Haven’t they used our military to secure their oil resources? Can’t they see that they’ve taken our country to the very edge, where they’re now affecting the thinking sector of their “republican” base to such an extent that they’ve got nothing left but the insanely rich and the evangelicals and other right wing idiots to support their cause?

I wouldn’t be too sure of that.

It would be nice to think that they’ve already checked out, that they floated the bomb Iran thing and that didn’t seem like it would go over so the people who really run things are counting the trillions of dollars they’ve made off manipulating the oil markets and GW Bush is just wandering around the White House, looking for the little things like silverware, towels and toilet paper he can steal to take home and break out when he and his buddies are really drunk on the ranch and he can say, “heh, heh, lookit this..” right before he shows them his antiquities his friend gave him from Iraq in the week after they took Iraq.

“It’s clay, but it’s really old, heh, heh.”

If Bush hasn’t talked to the Bin Ladens who’ve said, “Osama sends his love, and he’s ready to ship something nukular into your ports.
Thanks for never allowing those to be protected with any federal money, we’re golden” and they’ve got a plan.. Charlie Black misspoke, or he didn’t.

They don’t want to leave “office” because maybe someone would pursue treason charges, but I kind of doubt any one would. Politicians only want to stay in power. That seems to be what they’re all about.

So what is this all about?

Well, here you go; “In his second week in office George W. Bush created the task force, officially known as the National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG) with Dick Cheney as chairman.”

“Most of the activities of the Energy Task Force had not been disclosed to the public, even though Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests (since 19 April 2001) have sought to gain access to its materials. The organizations Judicial Watch and Sierra Club launched a law suit (U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia: Judicial Watch Inc. v. Department of Energy, et al., Civil Action No. 01-0981) under the FOIA to gain access to the task force's materials. On 5 March 2002 the US Government was ordered to make a full disclosure; this has not happened, pending appeal.”

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Task_Force

So what the FUCK?

How about this as a conspiracy theory?

Cheney, Bush and Condi meet and set out an agenda.

First WE LET THIS ATTACK HAPPEN BECAUSE OSAMA BIN LADEN IS BASED IN AFGHANISTAN AND UNOCAL ET AL NEEDS A PIPELINE.

From the 1998 Congressional Record
“”One obvious route south would cross Iran, but this is foreclosed for American companies because of U.S. sanctions legislation. The only other possible route is across Afghanistan, which has of course its own unique challenges. The country has been involved in bitter warfare for almost two decades, and is still divided by civil war. From the outset, we have made it clear that construction of the pipeline we have proposed across Afghanistan could not begin until a recognized government is in place that has the confidence of governments, lenders, and our company. Two major infrastructure projects are seeking to meet the need for additional export capacity. One, under the aegis of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium, plans to build a pipeline west from the northern Caspian to the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk. Oil would then go by tanker through the Bosporus to the Mediterranean and world markets.”

So.. being good capitalists who know we have to have the resources to run a war machine that will control the world and knowing those dwindling resources are OIL, let’s let that that PNAC dream of letting the Fundie Islamists attack us anywhere (oops, WTC on 911) so we can go in and scrape out the fundie Islamist scum from Afghanistan (like they did, and fuck the Muslim fundamentalists, really) so we can build that pipeline, like they did.

I can see where they’re coming from. I can appreciate their concern and the fact that they think that those who secure the world deserve to live in the world of wealth, but absolute power corrupts absolutely and it has taken 7 and a half years for people in the trickle down to feel the pain of that philosophy.

This plan is your tax dollars at work. It isn’t corporate tax dollars at work. They look at you like fodder, like another resource and they laugh at you because you aren’t in power like they are… and they stole their way to power.

They have absolutely no shame. They have absolutely no religion. They are only powered by greed. And we are better than they are.
I can deal with wiping out religious zealots. I can deal with greedy fucks making a little money off decimating the ignorant fundamentalist fucks who stone women and fuck their daughters and hate hate hate. Fuck them, I was exposed to Baptists at an early age and as fucked up as those idiots are, from what I hear about Islamofascists, they’re just vanilla child abusers.Afraid to dance.. feh!

What I have a problem with is letting people in the World Trade Centers be sheep to the slaughter for your energy plan. That’s treason and that’s one of the reasons the current administration is busily trying to wipe out all communications of their reign and if that doesn’t work, trying to figure out how to keep the perpetual war going. The finger of God, if there was one, is pointing severe retribution at the neocon fucks who have hijacked our country.

Next Energy Policy agenda item; WE NEED TO GET CONTROL OF IRAQ’S OIL.

So Bush and company lied themselves into that war. We all know how well that’s gone. There are good things and bad things. I’m not full on liberal, dissing the fact that we took out a dictator like Saddam Hussein who was about as bad as any dictator in the world, but the incompetence, the sheer stupidity of this administration in the aftermath has forever branded them as dipshits who’s dipshittery basically led to the deaths of not only our finest military men and women, but the people of Iraq and that led to a destabilization of the region that hasn’t worked in anyone’s interest, even the interest of the oil companies who’d hoped their buddy GWB would give them more than just billions of dollars of dollars shipped over in C-5’s that just disappeared. I wish I’d have been there when the C-5 opened up with those palates of cash and it was put into Mercedes and Jeeps and into my fucking backpack.

If you paid taxes in 2003, 10 percent of what you paid disappeared in Iraq with no record of where it went.

The next agenda items? Well..

LET’S DESTABILIZE THE MARKET SO WE CAN DRIVE OIL PRICES UP.

When Bush and Co. Stole the election in 2000, oil was below 40$ a barrel. Since the oil executives took over, oil has gone up to $140 a barrel.

Yea. www.aztlan.net/oiltanker.htm What is the new name of the Altair Voyager?

The “Condoleezza Rice”

This isn’t because of peak oil, this isn’t because of China and India, this is all because of speculation, the same bullshit that made California have rolling blackouts when Enron was running the show. There is plenty of oil for the world now, even though we are running out. This is nothing more than oil people stealing our government and letting whatever they need to make more and MORE goddamned money happen with absolutely ZERO REGULATION. Tomorrow, oil could drop back to, say, 60$ a barrel.. But that will never happen with these fucks, Bush and Cheney, and McBush in office. That will only happen if someone who isn’t owned by the oil world is running the county.

So, the country is tired and beaten. The politics of hate have played out. The real republicans, the one’s who thought their party was about economic conservatism are pissed. They all see that this is just a scam for GWBush and his oil and Halliburton cronies to make even more profit for their work are pissed.

And now? Well, the price of crude is high and every person in America is paying a shitload of money to drive, whether it is to get to work or to work. But they don’t fucking give a fuck, every extra 2 bucks you pay is multiplies by millions each day for them. Maybe it’ll help them build a colony on Mars after they’ve stolen all your money. But now, the final agenda item comes to the forefront:

WE NEED TO OPEN UP THE REMAINING 20 PERCENT OF OFFSHORE LAND FOR DRILLING.

Can’t you just see Cheney sitting there with his buddies, laughing over the pain they’ve intentionally caused/ Can’t you just see then laughing over the millions they’re making each day then saying, HA, and we’ll use this to get them to let us drill off their coasts because they’re stupid.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

I hope. I hope, as I’ve said before, that they just let it go if they don’t get it all. Damn, they couldn’t bomb Iran into the stone age. Fuck man, let Israel take out any nuclear facilities. They’re quite adept at that. Damn, they couldn’t get to actually protecting our country from the Islamists. You remember when they said the Clintonians stole all the “W”s off the keyboards when Bush came in and it was a lie? Well that’s going to be cute compared to what these criminals leave us, if they decide to allow elections. They’re going to leave us with a terrorist attack in the chamber that, if it happens, they’ll use as a means to point their lie machine to attack Obama’s government from the get go.

That is no where near unreasonable. It will happen, if they don’t let an attack happen before the election because it’ll supposedly help McCain. They don’t give a fuck about you and me. They stole the money, they pushed their agenda. There’s no reason not to expect the very worst from these evil men.

But I, for one, am glad the oil companies are back in control. I welcome our oily evil masters. Forget alternatives or believing in democracy. Don’t even bother to vote because it’s all rigged.

Or maybe, as Bill Kristol says, Bush will just bomb Iran before leaving office.
www.youtube.com/watch

“If [the Republicans] will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.”
Adlai Stevenson during the 1952 presidential campaign.

oldamericancentury.org/pnac.htm
www.bradblog.com/
www.voanews.com/english/20...4-voa31.cfm
www.whatreallyhappened.com/oil.html
strata.geol.sc.edu/petroleu...02000.htm
fuelfocus.nrcan.gc.ca/fact_sh...ne_e.cfm
www.wtrg.com/prices.htm

Race Tards




Sun, June 15, 2008 - 12:34 AM

My countdown widget on iGoogle tells me that, as long as there’s no more treason from the evil buffoons who’ve pillaged our country for the last 7 years (see postponing elections because they let another terrorist attack happen) T Minus W is 219 days, 9 hours, 16 minutes and 46 seconds.

America and the world will breathe a collective sigh of relief on the day Barack Obama takes office. And really, I mean, come on, even the forces of pure evil must have stolen enough money from the country, shed enough blood, built up large enough stockpiles of death, to sit back and let someone try to fix the mess Bush is leaving behind.

I could go on and on about how fucked up the last 7 years of this illegal regime have been. I could discuss how they stole what they wanted, starting with the election in 2000 and how “compassionate conservative” was pure bullshit. How they took BILLIONS of dollars from our collective pocketbooks with their retroactive “tax relief” for the rich that have helped the oil industry make profits unheard of. I could be bitter about their irresponsibility in letting the attacks of 911 happen on their watch when they had adequate warning (from the Clinton infrastructure he left behind). I could bitch about the evisceration of any and all regulatory governmental agencies that in turn led to things like the foreclosure crisis and recurring food poising and environmental havoc. Oh, and there were the lies that got us into the Iraq war when we should have gone into Somalia and stayed in Afghanistan and caught all the Taliban fucks who actually are our enemies but we didn’t because the only reason we went there was to secure Unocal safety for their pipeline.

Iraq? Fuck.. the utter fuckups in Iraq, Abu Grab, torture memos, Guantanamo, Kyoto, Blackwater, Halliburton, gas prices, the loss of respect in the world..

Sure, not all of it was bad. Saddam Hussein is dead. There is a possibility of a more democratic Iraq, but Syria and Iran are emboldened and far stronger than they were before. Bush and his people had no fucking idea what they were doing going to war.

Actually, they did know what they were doing. They were all war profiteers who made a fuckload of money finding another way to further drain off that surplus Bill Clinton left them.

In spite of our misguided leaders, the men and woman of our armed forces have persevered and always done their job, even when we’ve got Republicans voting against providing health care for Post Traumatic Stress after combat because it’s just too expensive and against just rewards like an upgraded GI Bill (They said it would encourage people to join the military short term so they could *just* get $ for college, no shit).

The Right Wing chicken Hawk fucks who have no problem sending our warriors to face death in the name of protecting our country and then who don’t want to take care of those warriors afterwards all deserve a special circle of Hell devoted just to them. Seriously.

They used our government to make their money. George W was a failed businessman before he was selected as the figure head for the NeoCon takeover of our government in 2000. He’s taken what he and his cronies wanted from every person in the US. He was the CEO president. Now I just hope he and his crew just go away and enjoy their spoils.

I guarantee that Barack Obama is no George W Bush.

He’ll be our first African American president, so we will now get to experience just how entrenched racism still is in this country.

It’s already started, the innuendo, the false Fox “News” reports (a "terrorist" fist bump? you decide"). And this will be a time for America to decide what is more important:

Buying more lies from a party that now touts itself in a bizarre Rovian round robin as the party of “change” – the Republicans, who are running an old doddering what man who will be older than Ronald Reagan was when he was elected and who represents even more of the same failed policies of Bush and Company,

… or for real change

– the Democrats who are running a halfbreed (Shekky, a halfbreed himself's affectionate term of endearment) named Barack Obama who’s plan includes every kind of tax break for the middle class to the poor, who is going to actually fix the health insurance crisis that affects everyone but the rich, who is for real environmental reform that will create millions of jobs and save our species existence, who is for fixing all the last 7 years of, well, see above. Barack Obama, who, by taking money from individual donors and not corporate interests in not OWNED by ANYONE. And even with just counting on the people to fund him, he's got a shit load of money because the PEOPLE are sick of having our government hijacked and we want CHANGE.

It is a choice between truth and lies. It is a choice between the future and the past. It is a choice between the easy (but getting harder b y the day) path of letting those with everything use you for their own ends until you are just a husk or being a part of our democracy that is dangerously close to disappearing all together if we let them steal another 4 years.

I can’t wait to see Barack and McCain debate. The contrast was stark on the night Obama took the nomination, with McCain giving his impotent (almost pathetic) speech to a couple hundred supporters and with Obama calling on our nation to take back our democracy in front of tens of thousands of cheering Americans.

I have to include part of his speech from that night. In quotes:

" America, this is our moment. This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past. Our time to bring new energy and new ideas to the challenges we face. Our time to offer a new direction for the country we love.

The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people. Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth. This was the moment—this was the time—when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals. Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America. "


This election is going to have a lot of raw drama as it busts open the boil of racism that lives just below the skin of America because it is there and Obama is “Black” enough now (remember when he wasn’t the Democratic front runner and people were asking, “Is he really BLACK ENOUGH?”)

But I have faith in Barack, like so many others do. His campaign is ready to fight the same lies and innuendo that Swiftboated John Kerry with his site:

my.barackobama.com/page/con...earshome/

… and that’s yet another thing that is so awesome about him. He has no problem calling out the Republicans when they lie. And he doesn’t have the same pussy attitude Kerry had, where the great statesman was shocked, just shocked, that there were Right Wing operatives who would do ANYTHING and say ANYTHING to cast any kind of doubt in people’s minds. I think that we’ve learned after the last two elections that they will stop at nothing to distort the truth so they can stay in power and keep up the “permanent Republican majority”.

I was listening to Meet the Press (Fuck I’m going to miss Tim Russert. He was so excited about this campaign and the historical moment in time we’re in. He was one of the good guys, one of the real journalists who were fair and balanced, before shitheads like O’Reilly and Limbaugh and their ilk came along to poison the well of journalism. Russert’s legacy will assert his integrity, and I am certain that history will not be so kind to the Right Wing) .. and Tim opened with the Robert F. Kennedy quote:

"'There is no question about it, in the next 40 years a Negro can achieve the same position that my brother has' ... Kennedy said that prejudice exists and probably will continue to exist ...'But we have tried to make progress and we are making progress. ... We are not going to accept the4 status quo.'"

Washington post, May 27, 1961

This is interesting also because RFK was assassinated 40 years ago, the same week Barack Obama became the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. 40 years… and we will most likely have our first African American president after the dust settles.

The sheer audacity of a BLACK man thinking he can become president. That is exactly the kind of audacity we need in times like these.

Barack wrote a book and you should read it if you really want to understand the man. It’s the first audio book I’ve ever listened to, “The Audacity of Hope” and since then, I’ve got to admit, I download his speeches and put them on my iPod and listen to them. I’d love to hear 2 minutes of GW Bush trying to read something he “wrote”. He is an amazing orator. He is smart. He cares deeply about this country. (Barack, obviously not Bush Junior)

When you’re listening to Obama speak, you can’t help but think you’ve never heard a politician speak like he does. At least my Generation X hasn't, or if we did, we were just barely old enough to remember our parents pointing at the black and white TV saying, "..remember this, we're landing on the moon" and that's about it.

Barack comes off as honest, intelligent, thoughtful, the utter opposite of the current resident of the US and as someone who is sick of the disease of our current government and who wants to change it. And he isn’t apologetic, no, he’s someone who can take on the worst that the right has to offer. Yes, he’s a politician, but he is grounded in the reality of 95% of Americans, not in the reality of this current regime that is only out for the rich and who throws out the occasional poison hate bone to the religious right in a Supreme Court justice or law to keep those uppity women from controlling what goes on in their bodies.

Obama's already said it, and I suspect it will be another “There you go again.. Reagan quote” when someone lies or distorts the truth and he says, “This is the kind of politics that I’m talking about. It is the kind of politics I believe we need to change.”

Audacity indeed.

The slings and arrows that Senator Obama has decided he will endure makes me shudder. He is a better man than I am, not because of his race or is ideals, but because he believes he can do this thing and I don’t care who you are, he deserves respect for what he has and will accomplish.

But the worms who, for whatever reason, hate someone because of the tone of their skin color will come to the surface and vomit out their hate. You can see it in comments sections on any political website now. You can see them surfacing on Fox News as “reporters” and in any other right leaning “news source” that are all just tools for the ruling class. This year, after being beaten down and seeing the rich constantly screw them, even the evangelicals aren’t sure what to do so the Republicans are going to have to widen their net a little and court the overtly racist vote because they’ve got so little else to run on.

And I predict, that they will come out full force, but, like the Republican party itself, they will damage their "brand", and since racists are far stupider than most of our species, they will burn out and hopefully self destruct early. This is unavoidable, the horror of being exposed to them, the embarrassment of knowing that genetically we are all related to them, and then the elation of seeing the sweet sunlight of truth burn them up into crisp turds on the sidewalk. If Bush has taught us anything, it is that things have to get very, very, very bad before people wake up and take action to rid themselves of the proactive evil that will always be there to destroy freedom and enlightenment.

I used to actually like John McCain, before he began cultivating the kinds of relationships with the far right hate machine and the very lobbyists and corporations that he once fought against before he flushed all his integrity so he could reach that pinnacle of presidential contender.

They’ll try tax and spend. They’ll try experience vs. youth. They’ll try security vs. inexperience, but none of those things will stick. So they’ll have to call on the army of ignorance to spread the virus of racism to really win (or they’ll try, as they have in the past to outright steal the elections on election day).

I can’t wait to see the Race Tards exposed to the light.

Their ugly head is just now peeping like a corn toothed shark out of the asshole of white trash America and you better bet the Republicans are going to use that great pathetic mass of ignorance like Willie Horton in a Twin Towers blender where Barack Obama Bin Laden is going to have a hip hop concert in the new Mosque he builds at ground zero.

The optimist in me says that we’re going to take back our country from the corporate fascists. We’re going to reel in the oil companies and restore fairness into the tax system. We’re going to put some balances in place that will keep another president from ever not only having disdain for the founding fathers of our country and that constitution they wrote, but utterly disregarding it again. We’re going to make our country truly safe and deal with the religious fundamentalists in the Middle East who aren't going to stop attacking us with more than just our war machine. We’re going to beat the Republicans, because they’ve run their course and gotten out of control in their ineptitude. They’ve destroyed so much of our country by sucking it dry with their irresponsible unabated greed that, as they say, has led to the “Republican Brand” being damaged.

And the optimist also believes that we survived. America is hurt and limping, but we survived and we will come back stronger. It’s like the last 8 years have taught us what happens when misguided people driven only by greed and a fascist ideology steal your government.

It is unfortunate that things had to get so bad for so many people to feel the need to bring about change, but this may be the one. This has to be the one. And even if some shenanigans like starting a war with Iran or letting another terrorist attack happens, we need to maintain our resolve and realize that the cancer on our country is the people who stole our government 8 years ago and they have to go.

We have to unite, all Americans, because 95% if us see where this path is leading and we don’t want it. The racists and the fascists, the corporate overlords and the Neocons may very well become extinct after this election if America can really rise up and take back our country, and unite and fight against greed and hate once and for all.

There are no red states and there are no blue states. There are only the United States.

It’s going to be a hell of a ride.


my.barackobama.com/page/con...earshome/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Russert
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy
current.com/items/890231..._40_years_ago - cool Youtube
nativenotes.wordpress.com/2008/...minee/
www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/0...45.html
www.breitbart.com/article.php




3 Comments

Justice Putnam


Sun, June 15, 2008 - 2:01 AM
I'm with you 100%!

QuasiPseudo


Thu, June 19, 2008 - 9:14 AM
Obama meets Peter at the Pearly Gates...

Peter: “Welcome to Heaven. Name?”
Obama: “Barak Obama.”
Peter: “Oh yes, that sounds familiar. Where would I know you from?”
Obama: “I was elected President of the United States.”
Peter: “No kidding?! The US elected a black man as their president? When did THIS happen?”
Obama: “Oh, about twenty minutes ago.”


Very tasteless, yes - but where do you think things will go should this little joke become a reality? How strategic should Obama be about picking his VP? ...and most importantly, how long can Obama go before he sells his soul like so many that have come before, who were initially credited with integrity? Or, has he already done so, while his amazing speech writers distract us with a message of hope?

In case you havent noticed, Im one cynical bastard when it comes to politics. However, Its one of the few subjects on which I greatly enjoy being proven wrong (& it doesnt happen nearly often enough). I sincerely hope that your hope in Obamas hope is well founded. Tho I pray for the day when we can finally eliminate all the hope middlemen and just be able to HOPE.

*Ali Baba* Alexandra Davies


Mon, June 23, 2008 - 5:51 PM
Barack is so inspiring. I love it. ;D

Talking Torture in the Whitehouse





Tue, April 15, 2008 - 12:32 AM

No surprise, and as Andrew Sullivan says, the fact that Bush and Cheney and the other high level trolls who make up the current ruling junta sat around thinking up ways to torture prisoners to the extent that then Attorney General Ashcroft remarked that maybe they shouldn't be having these discussions in the White House, is no where near as important as Barack Obama making an off the cuff remark that people who have been out of work in middle America for 25 years are bitter so they "cling" to their religion and their guns.

andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/th...tml

We'll see if this story is buried. Unfortunately, I suspect the terror alert level will be raised if people start paying attention.




3 Comments

Nicole aka ~technopatra~


Tue, April 15, 2008 - 9:05 AM
My fear is that they will successfully shift majority public opinion to accept their party line that it was all necessary to ensue or safety. They MUST be tried for war crimes.

Bobzilla


Tue, April 15, 2008 - 2:05 PM
Those guys are PURE EVIL.

Tim Black


Thu, April 17, 2008 - 9:37 AM
By signing off on clearly illegal actions they show that they expect no one to call them on it. This shows that the criminals at the top of our government genuinely believe they are above the law. Bush has shown over and over that he will redefine any law he dislikes with a stroke of his pen. So we KNOW that the entire gang are thugs and thieves, but what if they are also right about being above it all? What if their control is already so tight that they really have nothing to worry about. If this passes out of sight without anyone going on trial, I'm afraid the cout de ta is already over and the bastards have won.

The Lone Gunman State




Fri, February 22, 2008 - 3:25 PM

I wonder sometimes, if the Bushies have any intention of allowing a real election, even if they're handing over the chicken house to McCain.

And I LOVED this Bush quote in the paper on Wednesday regarding Cuba.

"This transition ought to lead to free and fair elections -- and I mean free and I mean fair, not these kind of staged elections that the Castro brothers try to foist off as being true democracy."

Good God that'd be hilarious if the George W. and brother Jeb's stolen 2000 Florida election hadn't brought about so much pain and wasted opportunities.

And there's rumblings about this from the Star-Telegram Feb. 21, 2008

"DALLAS -- Security details at Barack Obama's rally Wednesday stopped screening people for weapons at the front gates more than an hour before the Democratic presidential candidate took the stage at Reunion Arena.

The order to put down the metal detectors and stop checking purses and laptop bags came as a surprise to several Dallas police officers who said they believed it was a lapse in security.

Dallas Deputy Police Chief T.W. Lawrence, head of the Police Department's homeland security and special operations divisions, said the order -- apparently made by the U.S. Secret Service -- was meant to speed up the long lines outside and fill the arena's vacant seats before Obama came on.

"Sure," said Lawrence, when asked if he was concerned by the great number of people who had gotten into the building without being checked. But, he added, the turnout of more than 17,000 people seemed to be a "friendly crowd."

The Secret Service did not return a call from the Star-Telegram seeking comment.

Doors opened to the public at 10 a.m., and for the first hour security officers scanned each person who came in and checked their belongings in a process that kept movement of the long lines at a crawl. Then, about 11 a.m., an order came down to allow the people in without being checked.

Several Dallas police officers said it worried them that the arena was packed with people who got in without even a cursory inspection.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because, they said, the order was made by federal officials who were in charge of security at the event.

"How can you not be concerned in this day and age," said one policeman."

www.star-telegram.com/dallas_...413.html - image & story
www.star-telegram.com/dallas_...920.html

True, it may not have been a big deal, but it creeps me out and I'll feel a lot better when our candidates are out of Texas.

rambling politics




Fri, February 15, 2008 - 9:31 PM

I'm giving less of a fuck recently about what was with me if you care. Politics does that to me. Walking a lot around San Francisco gets me all hard. Makes me wonder why the fuck I waste time writing a goddamned blog. Makes me wonder what the fuck anything matters. Everything is fucking birthday party or disjointed opportunity to piss on another post. Fuck em whoever "em" are. It's like mailing meat to someone after leaving the meat out for a couple days so the flies can lay eggs in it and when the recipient of the meat opens your package a bonnet of flies buzz out. I think that was a Monte Cazazza vs. Genesis P-Orridge thing... I kind of remember it.

I’ve been writing down the game. It takes a while to gather all the synchronicities. I’ll post those this weekend.

I walked on, listening to Tupac Shakur, where he says:

“....
And although it seems heaven sent
We ain't ready, to see a black President, uhh
...
Well hey, well that's the way it is”

Fuckin poetry. Wish he was around to see the possibility of a Barack in the White House.

At the Hotel Utah tonight…. Graffiti in the bathroom: Oh, Ba, Ma self.
And a communist friend of mine calls Barack an Obama-Nation.

Once the primary is done, we’ll see what the Swiftboaters can do with Barack Obama. Expect shit like, “I hear he got sworn in as senator on the Koran” and “I hear he went to one of those Madrasa schools” and “He’s the Most LIBERAL member of the Senate, ever.”

Yea. I’ll bet he can stand up to the lies too. I hope he's sincere. I think he is. I'd love to see the hateful racists fucktards shit their pants when we've got our first Black President. I hope they quake and gnash teeth and fucking lose their minds. I hope their fucking heads explode because they're dinosaurs from an ignorant dying reality and they had their time to fuck shit up (even though they were just patsies for the rich who USED them to loot the government, but they're too stupid to realize that).

Hey, at least he isn't a woman, huh you fucking assholes? Fuck You republican right wing dumbasses, really. We'll clean up your mess so get out of the way.

I think people are fucking sick of the plunder of the last 7 years. I just hope the Bush team doesn’t have a terrorist attack in the hopper, let it happen in September, and they’re ready in time to install martial law and an election postponement.

Was that a test in Pakistan, with Benazir Bhutto? To see what a populace who are disgusted with a corrupt government are willing to do when their candidate is killed by the system?

I’ll say it again, I just hope they've looted the treasury enough and that they’ve got enough money to let someone who actually gives a fuck about our country run it for a while. They can steal the election in 8 years, after someone’s fixed things, avoided a revolution.

Things have to get really bad before people start fucking voting. Things have to get really bad before people start taking notice of what the “leaders” are doing. Is it possible we’ve gotten bad enough? I hope we don’t have to move into a corporate/religious, pure unapologetic fascist state before things get bad enough for the people to take back the power.

Because, if the Republicans win or steal this election, the great American Dream is over.

We may as well have a fucking king, cause we’re all fucking serfs.

And to anyone who says whoever is in power doesn’t matter, all the dead for oil, all the money they’ve stolen, all the environmental carnage and pure greed driven decisions, all the ignoring the constitution, all the criminal shit they continue doing, well, look at the toads Bush stacked into the Supreme Court. You think Hillary or Barack are going to put roundhead puritans in like Roberts or Scalia or Thomas? No, they won’t. They’ll put in people who respect the constitution, people who aren’t lapdogs for a right wing ideology.

Fuck’s sake. I want to puke, seeing what they’ve done to our country. I want them in prison. I want them gone. I want our country to get closer to what it can be, even if it isn’t perfect, we could take it back from these corporate raiders, I still believe it’s possible.

But maybe I’m really dead, just living an illusion. May be when I wake up, I’ll realize that they’ve won and hope was just a fucking fleeting dream that kept us all from taking up arms to overthrow our oppressors.

I hope that isn’t the case.



Tim Black


Sat, February 16, 2008 - 1:04 PM
I think we (as a nation) are headed for a economic train wreak. The current fools will not stop raiding until the credit is gone and currency is as worthless as post war Germany. This is one reason we practice reuse, self-sufficiency and barter. Because in a few years, that is how we all will be living. I don't believe anything will stop this now. As burners we are used to having a party in the leftovers and wreckage of "normal" life. This is in fact training for the future. When a wound is big enough, it's only a matter of time before the body dies. We are not dead, but America (as we have know it) is dead. (We have NO money, only a crushing debt, the entire income tax no longer covers the interest payments.) The abuse of power and destruction of this nations wealth is a mortal wound. it just hasn't stopped twitching yet.

Three states for Obama this weekend




Sun, February 10, 2008 - 12:14 AM

In case you thought it was over, it isn't

Here you go:

"Obama won the Nebraska and Washington caucuses by greater than two-to-one margins against Senator Hillary Clinton and easily captured the Louisiana primary by a double-digit margin with heavy support among African-American voters. Obama also swamped Clinton in the US Virgin Islands caucuses. But because of the proportional awarding of delegates in the Democratic contests, the two contenders remain locked in a close battle for the 2,025 delegates needed to secure the party's nomination."

--------------

Obama sweeps races

By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff
Posted by Foon Rhee, deputy national political editor February 10, 2008 12:43 AM

WASHINGTON -- Senator Barack Obama scored a clean sweep in Saturday's Democratic nominating contests from the West Coast to the Caribbean, giving him a burst of momentum in a Democratic campaign where every delegate has become crucial to capturing the nomination.

On the Republican side, a defiant Mike Huckabee easily won the GOP caucuses in Kansas and was projected as the narrow winner in the Louisiana primary, picking up support from social conservatives to best his party's front-runner, Senator John McCain, and giving a breath of life to the former Arkansas governor's uphill campaign. Huckabee and McCain were locked in a race that was too close to call early today in the Washington state caucuses.

Obama won the Nebraska and Washington caucuses by greater than two-to-one margins against Senator Hillary Clinton and easily captured the Louisiana primary by a double-digit margin with heavy support among African-American voters. Obama also swamped Clinton in the US Virgin Islands caucuses. But because of the proportional awarding of delegates in the Democratic contests, the two contenders remain locked in a close battle for the 2,025 delegates needed to secure the party's nomination.

"We won north, we won south, we won in between,'' a jubilant Obama told a Democratic Party dinner last night in Virginia. "And I believe we can win Virginia,'' he added to cheers and shouts of "Yes, we can!'' his campaign mantra.

The attention now moves to Maine, where Democrats will hold caucuses today, and to Tuesday's "Potomac Primary,'' in which Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia will hold primaries. Obama is leading in polls in Virginia and Maryland, and is expected to win in the District, so the Clinton campaign is banking heavily on wins in bigger states next month to keep her in the running.

While the Obama campaign celebrated, the Clinton camp sought to downplay Obama's successes last night, even before the votes were counted. "The Obama campaign has dramatically outspent our campaign in these three states, saturating the airwaves with 30 and 60 second ads,"' the campaign said in a memo to reporters. "Although the next several states that hold nominating contests this month are more favorable to the Obama campaign, we will continue to compete in them and hope to secure as many delegates as we can before the race turns to Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania.''

The Illinois senator has done overwhelmingly well among black voters, helping him score victories in the South and giving him an edge in the primaries coming up Tuesday. But Clinton has done very well among Latinos voters -- capturing California largely because of the two-thirds of the Hispanic vote there she received -- and her campaign expects the New York lawmaker to have an advantage in Texas because of the Latino vote there.

Heading into yesterday's contests, Clinton held a small lead over Obama in the delegate count, 1,055 to 998, according to an Associated Press tally, which includes the results of primaries and caucuses, plus a survey of unpledged "superdelegates." But Obama's campaign said last night that after his wins, he leads Clinton by about 70 delegates among those awarded in actual contests.

Obama can also claim wins in the popular vote in 18 states to 10 states for Clinton -- with votes still being counted in New Mexico from Tuesday. Clinton also won in Florida and Michigan, but those delegates are not being counted because the states broke party rules to move up their primaries. National polls show the two deadlocked.


www.boston.com/news/polit...eps_ra.html
www.latimes.com/news/natio...97845.story

image: woodburydems.com/blog/uplo...731285.jpg

Why do I like this guy?




Fri, February 8, 2008 - 11:33 PM

and think he'd be a great president? Looks like a lot of other people like him too. Was Oprah behind all this? He gives a good speech, you gotta give him that.

Watch this.

www.dipdive.com/

"we've been told we cannot do this..."

"..there's something happening in America,
that we are not as divided as our politics suggest.

That we are one people.
that we are one Nation and that together we will begin the next great chapter in the American story with three words that will ring from coast to coast, from sea to shining sea,

Yes We Can."

...

damn..

If you think you can know a person by their words, if you can feel them by the way they speak, if you can believe them, even when you're watching them on television or the internet, and if you think they're the right choice to fix all that's been destroyed, well..

You should check this out.

And, this was an interesting editorial in the SFChronic today.

I hadn't read his stuff before en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sirota
but I found this interesting and worth a read. He makes a good point about the Clinton machine (and don't get me wrong, I thought Bill did a great job and Hill would probably do that same if she could get elected) but his point is - You mention class and we'll talk about race.

The Democrats' class war

David Sirota, Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Friday, February 8, 2008

or all the hype about generational and gender wars in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, we have a class war on our hands. And incredibly, corporate America's preferred candidate is winning the poorer "us" versus the wealthier "them" - a potentially decisive trend with the contest now moving to working-class bastions like Ohio and Pennsylvania.

In most states, polls show Hillary Clinton is beating Barack Obama among voters making $50,000 a year or less - many of whom say the economy is their top concern. Yes, the New York senator who appeared on the cover of Fortune magazine as Big Business's candidate is winning economically insecure, lower-income communities over the Illinois senator who grew up as an organizer helping those communities combat unemployment. This absurd phenomenon is a product of both message and bias.

Obama has let Clinton characterize the 1990s as a nirvana, rather than a time that sowed the seeds of our current troubles. He barely criticizes the Clinton administration for championing job-killing trade agreements. He does not question that same administration's role in deregulating the financial industry and thereby intensifying today's boom-bust catastrophes. And he rarely points out what McClatchy Newspapers reported this week: that Clinton spent most of her career at a law firm "where she represented big companies and served on corporate boards," including Wal-Mart's.

Obama hasn't touched any of this for two reasons.

First, his campaign relies on corporate donations. Though Obama certainly is less industry-owned than Clinton, the Washington Post noted last spring that he was the top recipient of Wall Street contributions. That cash is hush money, contingent on candidates silencing their populist rhetoric.

But while this pressure to keep quiet affects all politicians, it is especially intense against black leaders.

"If Obama started talking like John Edwards and tapped into working-class, blue-collar proletarian rage, suddenly all of those white voters who are viewing him within the lens of transcendence would start seeing him differently," says Charles Ellison of the University of Denver's Center for African American Policy.

That's because once Obama parroted Edwards' attacks on greed and inequality, he would "be stigmatized as a candidate mobilizing race," says Manning Marable, a Columbia University history professor. That is, the media would immediately portray him as another Jesse Jackson - a figure whose progressivism has been (unfairly) depicted as racial politics anathema to white swing voters.

Remember, this is always how power-challenging African Americans are marginalized. The establishment cites a black leader's race- and class-unifying populism as supposed proof of his or her radical, race-centric views. An extreme example of this came from the FBI, which labeled Martin Luther King Jr. "the most dangerous man in America" for talking about poverty. More typical is the attitude exemplified by Joe Klein's 2006 Time magazine column. He called progressive Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., "an African American of a certain age and ideology, easily stereotyped" and "one of the ancient band of left-liberals who grew up in the angry hothouse of inner-city, racial-preference politics."

The Clintons are only too happy to navigate this ugly cultural topography. After a rare Obama attack on Hillary Clinton for supporting policies that eliminated jobs, Bill Clinton quickly likened Obama's campaign to Jackson's, and the Clinton campaign told the Associated Press Obama was "the black candidate." These were deliberate statements telling Obama that if he talks about class, they'll talk about race.

And so, as Marable says, Obama's pitch includes "no mention of the class struggle or class conflict." It is "hope" instead of an economic case, bromide instead of critique. The result is an oxymoronic dynamic.

Obama, the person who fought blue-collar joblessness in the shadows of shuttered factories, is winning wealthy enclaves. But Clinton, the person whose globalization policies helped shutter those factories, is winning blue-collar strongholds.

Obama, who was schooled by the same organizing networks as Cesar Chavez, is being endorsed by hedge fund managers. But Clinton, business's favorite, is being endorsed by the United Farm Workers - the union that Chavez created.

Obama, the candidate from Chicago's impoverished South Side, is finding support on Connecticut's gilded south coast. But Hillary Clinton, the candidate representing Big Money, is finding support from those with relatively little money.

As the campaign heads to the struggling Rust Belt under banners promising "change," this bizarre class war may end up guaranteeing no real transformation at all.

David Sirota is a bestselling author whose newest book, "The Uprising," will be released in June of 2008.

www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi

Who is watching the voting machines?




QuasiPseudo wrote:

Just curious Moze, do you think that any to all of the elections since at least 2000 have been stolen/corrupted?

Moze replied:

I imagine that we've had stolen elections from the beginning of the American experiment, but I think 2000 was a banner year for the combination of technology and corruption when it comes to elections. That year we saw the traditional voter disenfranchisement mixed with blatant "voting irregularities", i.e. Diebold who've consistently promised to deliver elections. Katherine Harris is gone.. so is Jeb.

Somehow I rationalize it all by thinking that if we reach a certain, overwhelming percentage, we can beat the people who control the machines.

And that may be about as stupid as it gets.

Florida is out. I'm from Florida and I know how many soulless criminals live there. The ultimate justice would be if global warming sank the entire state and sent its residents scrambling like a bunch of insects upon the seas (except for my family who live there, of course). I got a kick out of the Democratic denial of their delegates. Seemed perfect.

You have a good point. Who is watching those machines? Everyone is partisan. And most people are fucking as ignorant as it gets when it comes to technology.

The question seems to be, are they going to be entirely stupid and skew things so far that people wonder wtf is going on .. oh, they've already done that.

I don't know. I think we need oversight. Who is in charge of that? Anyone? We can count of the current administration to always break the law. They've never done anything but. Who is watching the voting machines? Other than these guys, who just report on it: www.blackboxvoting.org/

Black Box Voting (.ORG) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, 501c(3) organization funded by citizen donations.

Donate Now by Visa, MC, Amex

Contact info: 425-793-1030; cell 206-335-7747; Mailing address: 330 SW 43rd St. Suite K, Box 547, Renton WA 98055. E-mail

When SF goes for McCain, we're truly fuct.

Bird is going to vote for Hillary. I'm voting for Obama. I may very well go door to door tomorrow. I gathered signatures for Jerry Brown when I first moved to California a long time ago. Could be fun. I know they always annoy me when they knock on the door. Ah, why not...

people.tribe.net/58284f03-...5a16901380




2 Comments

QuasiPseudo


Mon, February 4, 2008 - 11:00 AM
Thanks for taking the time to comment, this election season's got me pretty irked to say the least.

Im not so interested in proving electoral corruption at this point, but what I am trying to understand is HOW the people who believe that our elections are corrupted think that anything will be different this time around. Did I miss something? The results must still be taken on faith, no? Is this the last hope that people are clinging to, that somehow the removal of this administration will change everything? When Hillary gets elected, will it be a huge triumph for the anti-Bush crowd? Remember who succeeded the last Bush? Someone just as corrupt & connected as who will succeed the next. The hand lowers, shoves itself up a new puppets ass, and raises again. All IMO, of course, but is there any further reason that I should have more faith than none, simply because it is a defeatist attitude?

Moze


Sat, February 9, 2008 - 11:21 PM
Moze


Sat, February 9, 2008 - 11:17 PM
this is interesting

mediamatters.org/items/200802060008

'During MSNBC's February 5 coverage of that day's primary contests, on a day in which Democratic turnout reportedly exceeded Republican by 75 percent, co-anchor Chris Matthews suggested that Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean should be concerned about the party's lack of broad appeal."

75%?

so.. suppose that many democrats vote, even in a fucktard state like Florida, and the election is still stolen. I can't believe the fascists would be able to steal that.

I hope I'm right. I think they want to avoid a revolution because if that happens they'll lose more than they will having to pay taxes for four year.

As criminal as they are, really, something like this, the last thing they want is a spot light on what they've done in the past.

I'm hoping that the shit they've done in the last 8 years will finally make our country say enough. Maybe make us use our power, because voting is power, and even if you have to have a 50 to 1 majority when voting, that's power.

It's entirely anti American what the Bush Fascists have done, but I really don't want to give up hope yet.

Democratic Debate Thursday




Thu, January 31, 2008 - 6:19 PM

Tonight's debate is awesome. Both Barack and Hillary are doing a great job. They're articulate, gracious, intelligent.

Man I can't wait to get rid of Bush. Both of these people will be able to stand up to either Romney or McCain. The Republicans already have their Clinton Hate / Lie machine ready to go. I think they'd have a harder time with Obama. Plus, well, Obama consistently tells it like it is. He's got an ability none of he others on either side have, to see the big picture and make a point that he isn't being led into. He isn't worried about taking a stand.

Both of them truly believe they can beat the Republicans and that's good. I'm a little concerned that the megalomaniac spoiler Ralph Nader is thinking about running again, however, I think he's largely irrelevant now..

Best quote of the night so far is from Hillary.

"It took a Clinton to clean up after the first Bush and I think its going to take a Clinton to clean up after the second Bush."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/31/debate.main/

The Best Part of Bush's Speech





Tue, January 29, 2008 - 11:18 AM

hah, the poll from SF gate today

www.sfgate.com/

Barack Obama Responds to the State of the Union




Mon, January 28, 2008 - 10:30 PM

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/samgrahamfelsen/CGVX8

Here's some sense to counter Bush's State of Denial speech.... Barack Responds to the State of the Union


Tonight, for the seventh long year, the American people heard a State of the Union that didn’t reflect the America we see, and didn’t address the challenges we face. But what it did do was give us an urgent reminder of why it’s so important to turn the page on the failed politics and policies of the past, and change the status quo in Washington so we can finally start making progress for ordinary Americans.

Tonight’s State of the Union was full of the same empty rhetoric the American people have come to expect from this President. We heard President Bush say he’d do something to cut down on special interest earmarks, but we know these earmarks have skyrocketed under his administration.

We heard the President say he wants to make tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans permanent, when we know that at a time of war and economic hardship, the last thing we need is a permanent tax cut for Americans who don’t need them and weren’t even asking for them. What we need is a middle class tax cut, and that’s exactly what I will provide as President.

We heard the President say he has a stimulus plan to boost our economy, but we know his plan leaves out seniors and fails to expand unemployment insurance, and we know it was George Bush’s Washington that let the banks and financial institutions run amok, and take our economy down this dangerous road. What we need to do now is put more money in the pockets of workers and seniors, and expand unemployment insurance for more people and more time. And I have a plan that to do just that.

And finally, tonight we heard President Bush say that the surge in Iraq is working, when we know that’s just not true. Yes, our valiant soldiers have helped reduce the violence. Five soldiers gave their lives today in this cause, and we mourn their loss and pray for their families.

But let there be no doubt – the Iraqi government has failed to seize the moment to reach the compromises necessary for an enduring peace. That was what we were told the surge was all about. So the only way we’re finally going to pressure the Iraqis to reconcile and take responsibility for their future is to immediately begin the responsible withdrawal of our combat brigades so that we can bring all of our combat troops home.

But another reason we need to begin this withdrawal immediately is because this war has not made us safer. I opposed this war from the start in part because I was concerned that it would take our eye off al Qaeda and distract us from finishing the job in Afghanistan. Sadly, that’s what happened. It’s time to heed our military commanders by increasing our commitment to Afghanistan, and it’s time to protect the American people by taking the fight to al Qaeda.

Tonight was President Bush’s last State of the Union, and I do not believe history will judge his administration kindly. But I also believe the failures of the last seven years stem not just from any single policy, but from a broken politics in Washington. A politics that says it’s ok to demonize your political opponents when we should be coming together to solve problems. A politics that puts Wall Street ahead of Main Street, ignoring the reality that our fates are intertwined; a politics that accepts lobbyists as part of the system in Washington, instead of recognizing how much they’re a part of the problem. And a politics of fear and ideology instead of hope and common sense.

I believe a new kind of politics is possible, and I believe it is necessary. Because the American people can’t afford another four years without health care, decent wages, or an end to this war. The woman who’s going to college and working the night shift to pay her sister’s medical bills can’t afford to wait. The Maytag workers who are now competing with their teenagers for $7 an hour jobs at Wall Mart can’t afford to wait. And the woman who told me she hasn’t been able to breathe since her nephew left for Iraq can’t afford to wait.

Each year, as we watch the State of the Union, we see half the chamber rise to applaud the President and half the chamber stay in their seats. We see half the country tune in to watch, but know that much of the country has stopped even listening. Imagine if next year was different. Imagine if next year, the entire nation had a president they could believe in. A president who rallied all Americans around a common purpose. That’s the kind of President we need in this country. And with your help in the coming days and weeks, that’s the kind of President I will be.

State of the Union Address




Mon, January 28, 2008 - 7:53 PM

Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

Watching Bush's last State of the Union made me feel in parts sad for what he and his people have done to our country and hopeful, that possibly there will be some kind of change for the better. Perhaps now someone can come in and fix the damage.

With every sneer, I remembered what a despicable little man the current resident of the White House is. When he chided Congress for not acting to maintain his "tax relief", when he told them they needed to pass legislation to keep his domestic spying program going, when he spoke of bringing Justice and Liberty to the world... it all makes you a little queasy. He'd spout some double speak and sneer then smile over at his applauding lapdogs on the Republican side of the isle who stood obedient and grateful for how he's filled their coffers with our money in the last 7 years.

Man, I can't wait to not have to see this guy again.

When he was mentioning protecting the environment and how to safeguard our future I felt sick knowing that these last 7 years of inaction will be paid for with global suffering on a scale that didn't have to occur if we'd had leadership rather than a criminal oil man running the show. When he was discussing alternative power and he said NuKuLar I thought to myself, that may be the last time I'll have to hear that idiot mispronounce the word, but later he spent plenty of time on Iran and the threat their NuKuLar program poses. You could almost see the spots of black that are Cheney's eye glisten when GW talked about how we need to keep an eye on Iran. Then he mispronounced Zimbabwe as Zimbawe.. you could tell he was getting tired and that the attention span was starting to wane.

Then he said: "As we increase funding, we must also reform our veterans system to meet the needs of a new war and a new generation." and I thought, a new war huh.. interesting choice of wording there.

Man I hope the final fuck you of this administration isn't to drop nukes on Iran months before they're scheduled to leave. People in the U.S. have gotten used to this administration's total disregard for the law. They're used to being spied on, for having their tax dollars funneled off into the coffers of the fat cat friends of the administration. They're used to hearing about how our government uses torture or how something like the aftermath of Katrina can happen and no one will be held responsible. They're used to seeing elections stolen. They're used to seeing the rich get richer and the middle class and poor get poorer to make them rich. They're used to seeing the Constitution used to wipe these guy's asses.

I can't believe it looks like we're going to survive eight years of this. We are a resilient people...

I imagine this is what it feels like to have an out of control abusive father who is going away to prison soon, or maybe it's like you're just getting better from a disease and you know that by the end of the year, you'll probably be well again. You just want it to be over and you want to get out with as little damage as possible.

I just want them to take the last of our money and leave the mess behind for someone else to fix. I just want them to go away. We've done better before, we can do better again.

www.sfgate.com/flat/archi...nion28.html

image: simondonohue.files.wordpress.com/2...pg




5 Comments

Sunburn Sarah


Mon, January 28, 2008 - 8:43 PM
half the time I was cheering he was on his way out,, and the other half, I was puking.. but that happens everytime the ass speaks..

Hot Damn


Mon, January 28, 2008 - 9:44 PM
You should watch Barak Obama's South Carolina primary victory speech- it'll clear your mind.

Moze


Mon, January 28, 2008 - 10:27 PM
good idea. I'll even post his response to the State of the Union

kaiya (La Princesa del Sol)


Tue, January 29, 2008 - 12:52 AM
I tried so hard.
I am an old man of sorts and watch Jeopardy! every night. For some reason I though the SOB'ss SOU address was on Wednesday. So I turn to ABC and my show has been pre-empted by a speech being given by the 'Leader of the Free World.' WTF?? I tried so hard. I tried so, so hard. But I literally could not sit through it. Just couldn't do it. That smug, smirk as people all around me are beginning to hunt for roommates because they can't afford the same stuff they were affording last year at this time because the price of everything went through the roof. When every effing time I go to LAX, I see some 18 or 22 year old being shipped off to a probable death; when some of my students' parents have become literally homeless as part of the fall-out from the sub-prime lending debacle; when even I have set my course to leave California in 21 months for North Carolina because it's so much more affordable ... that Soulless Demonic Loser, has the nerve to SMILE, at every pause he made? I couldn't do it without breaking sh*t and since I don't have the extra fundage to replace a television with a clawhammer lodged in its front, I went ahead and changed the channel.

Thanks so much for posting this...and your Statue of Liberty (float?) picture is PRICELESS!!!

best,
kaiya

Sunburn Sarah


Tue, January 29, 2008 - 5:51 AM
" that Soulless Demonic Loser"

well said!