It could be confused for being contrarian or reactionary, but how else do you build upon what you learn? Instead of letting life buffet you while you strap yourself to a mast to drift to a predestined shore, why not sail a bit? You’ve got a rudder and centerboard to limit your drift. Let those who live back in the age of the square sail think that weather can only lead downwind.
In public protest, as in arguments, I can tell I’m on the right tack when authorities object to what I’m saying. I’ve learned this much, if they don’t like where you’re standing, you’re closing in on the sweet spot.
The 2008 presidential campaign offered some great insight on political positioning. I’d like to consider the attempts to slander Barack Obama as a point of reference. A good place to start for what most scares authority.
Middle name Hussein?
Sounds like a fine middle name to me. Adopted by any of us, “Hussein” commemorates cultural tolerance, specifically, irreverence for ethnocentric bigotry and false fear-mongering.
Paling around with Bill Ayers?
We should all be so lucky to know a real 60s Weatherman. Where were you on the Vietnam War? Any less radical ideology would probably be indefensible now. Maybe “Bill Ayers” makes an even better middle name to adopt, if you want to pay tribute to youthful idealism and audacity.
(BTW- The Weather Underground Organization (WUO), was a militant antiwar group known originally as The Weathermen, named from a Dylan lyric referencing Kerouac. Splintered from the Revolutionary Youth Movement (RYM), a subgroup of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the Weatherman formed a “white fighting force” in solidarity with the Black Liberation Movement after the murder of Blank Panther leader Fred Hampton.
BTW2- Neither Bill Ayers nor the WUO were terrorists. The bombs they planted were not to terrorize people but to symbolize the need to destroy the mechanisms of US imperialism. Warnings were always issued beforehand to prevent casualties.)
Agree with Reverend Jeremiah Wright?
Wow. Who could but hope to have the moral courage of Reverend Wright? Especially his temerity, eloquence and perseverance. “God Damn America?” If any Nationalist Hypocracy ever deserved a wrathful kick in the ass, we do. God Damn America most certainly. Americans joke about Hell in a Handbasket, but where are those who dare leap out and try to lead their companions to deserving a more honorable fate? The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The Stars and Stripes fly over monumental crimes for which Americans have never atoned. We worship false Gods if they do not damn our immoral economic enslavement of everyone in our grasp.
As a politician, Barack Obama would not have had the latitude to express agreement with Reverend Wright. Or admiration for Bill Ayers. It’s nothing to do with conviction and everything to do with the compromises of an elected office in the face of a slanderous press. But while Obama makes his pragmatic choices to get neared the seat of power, we needn’t delude ourselves about right and wrong, wisdom and ignorance. We don’t need to win popularity contests, so why not be our true, moral selves?
Socialist?
That old anti-capitalism Red Scare bugaboo? Too bad for the would-be critics, “socialist” doesn’t mean totalitarian commie, or puritanical dictator. Socialism means putting social concerns first. Socialized medicine. Socialized education. Socialized economy. Protecting ourselves and fellow beings from the baser human natures of predation and greed. I find a person who is opposed to socialism is, and it’s an instructive pun, anti-social.
Ralph Nader speaks to Alexander Cockburn about the poor performance of his campaign this year, but fails to mention the main reason that was so. This was Nader’s third and most probably last run for the presidency and what it lacked was any noticeable performance by Ralph Nader in the non election years.
Expect the cheers of delight to begin tonight, as many Americans begin to celebrate what the corporate media tomorrow will call a historic event. However, they will be wrong. There will have been no major change in America at all.
Last week we saw most of America go into shock as the stark reality of the US not having a real opposition party became evident. The Democratic Party actually led the rush to pass Bush’s $700 billion giveaway to the rich Bill into law, and it was actually the Republican party that posed the minor stumbling block to getting it done. The American people were almost completely left on the sidelines as a result of simply never having constructed a major opposition party to the Two Party Big Business dictatorship that US is run under.
So many Americans seem to want to believe that China is a communist country despite the obvious fact that its capitalist economy’s products remain so deadly due to lack of any real government regulation rather than any supposed socialistic government over-regulation.
In his book
…Meles Zenawi… US pit bull pulling himself out of US custody?
…Dictatorships have gotten wise. It is easier to run a dictatorship when you present the public with two parties instead of one. Dictatorial Power no longer resides in just one single individual in today’s dictatorship, but within one power bloc instead. The public face of today’s dictatorship is a bureaucratic assemble of hacks, not just the face of one Supremo.
Russia and China have been trying to stay out of the line of fire by appeasing the US/NATO drive for perpetual war, but it has not worked, will not work, and cannot work. Russia should not pull its troops out of the Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions, areas considered by the US/NATO to be part of their new country of Georgia, which the US set up at the fall of the former Soviet Union. These regions are actually full of other nationalities other than just Georgians, and have absolutely no reason to be considered Georgian property at all by the rest of the world.
— — —
The Russians have issued a peace plan for Georgia and the US to accept, and SURPRISE!
What’s left for Carla Bruni-Sarkozy? Heiress, supermodel, pop diva, Queen of France. Now everyone’s mind is on her chrysanthemum.