Do you want another white president?
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Tag Archives: Hillary Clinton
Yes All Women except Hillary 2016 No
Are women under attack? Recent attacks on women’s rights look more like straw men for feminists to stress their underrepresentation in the power structure. While the inequality is ever present, social engineers appear to be positioning women’s rights as the wedge issue to divide the electorate in 2016 and insure the two corporate parties are choice enough. Yes all women, except Hillary in 2016.
If we want a first lady to become the president we can do better than Hillary
NPR: women berserkers, oil whores, Goebbels Surge, presidential DNA
I accidentally listened to NPR today, what an earful of crap! No wonder Americans are so uninformed, none more than self-identifying progressives, waylaid by Corporate Public shysters. Here’s what I overheard:
The Defense Department is running short on recruits so they need to draft women into combat roles. Leon Panetta has righted a constitutional injustice apparently and will deploy women into battle. Because women want equality to torture, join kill squads, shoot children, get PTSD, join ranks of homeless or commit suicide. Greatest gender advance since Virginia Slims.
NPR interviewed oil workers who shrug off risk like Algerian massacre and speak fondly of their rape of Africa. According to them it’s “all about the Benjamins” to pay cash for sports cars and ATVs, and international travel for access to “cheap women”. Funny, the interviewees declined to reveal their full names. The energy industry promises jobs, but decent people need not apply.
General “All Up In My Snatch” Petraeus is being credited with inventing a counterinsurgency tactic called “the Surge”. Yeah, we’ve heard of it. Formally just a word, the “tactic” is not military, but public relations, attributable to Joseph Goebbels, to minimize an escalation or troop buildup by pretending it’s temporary.
The Benghazi Kerfuffle, now a DC sideshow instead of the foreign relations comeuppance where US intervention operatives in Libya got their just-desserts, is being amplified to be a vehicle to kick off Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. The ex Secretary of State was praised for her gravitas and standing, leading MSNBC to suggest that “diplomacy is in her DNA”. Spouses share DNA? Are talking heads confusing DNA with VD?
berserker
If by UN declaring a civil war in Syria classifies atrocities as war crimes, US covert forces there are war criminals
UN observers have now labeled rebel clashes in Syria as having escalated into “Civil War”, initiating the legal foundation to go after Syrian president Assad on charges of “war” crimes. It’s a welcome bit of sophistry and should cut both ways. If the insurgent groups are armed and lead by covert special op forces of the US and NATO, then who are the bigger war criminals? So far the massacres ascribed to Assad, provoking Hillary Clinton’s condemnation, have proved to be the work of US-allied rebels.
Yes it was the iconic reaction shot
The White House Situation Room group photo of everyone fixated on the live video feed of Operation Geronimo was “iconic” alright, in composition virtually Alfred Aisenstaedt’s original. Your eye is drawn to center right where Hillary Clinton recoils not sure what to think, she’s a foil to the uniform enthusiasm. Scanning the background as we read a page, Biden knows they’re going to hell, Obama is the everyman caught mid-gasp, he reflects us. The rest are the upraised arm, cheering with ass-kicking glee. In Paris they were watching St. George slay the dragon, puppets no less –how far we’ve come– though Punch & Judy would have been analogous enough: a Navy Seals home invasion, Fort Benning School of the Americas style; a night-visioned, take-no-prisoners death squad, riding in on not just the proverbial black helicopters, but apparently a black-budget three-rotor model never yet publicly unveiled, literally, bin Laden was shown it and they had to kill him.
Good news for Haiti
On the bright side of Haiti’s catastrophic earthquake, American puppet René Préval has been cut down a few notches, a whole couple stories actually. Here’s the presidential palace before January 12 and after. The pretender Preval has been Our Man in Port-au-Prince subsequent to the US-arranged a coup in 2004 to depose the democratically elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide (for the second time). The popular Aristide was a threat to exploitation interests.
While Americans rally to provide relief to the Haitians, let’s not be too incredulous about the state of their poverty. Here’s A.N.S.W.E.R.’s recent statement to highlight this teaching moment:
All of us are joining in the outpouring of solidarity from people all over the hemisphere and world who are sending humanitarian aid and assistance to the people of Haiti.
At such a moment, it is also important to put this catastrophe into a political and social context. Without this context, it is impossible to understand both the monumental problems facing Haiti and, most importantly, the solutions that can allow Haiti to survive and thrive. Hillary Clinton said today, “It is biblical, the tragedy that continues to daunt Haiti and the Haitian people.” This hypocritical statement that blames Haiti’s suffering exclusively on an “act of God” masks the role of U.S. and French imperialism in the region.
In this email message, we have included some background information about Haiti that helps establish the real context:
Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive stated today that as many as 100,000 Haitians may be dead. International media is reporting bodies being piled along streets surrounded by the rubble from thousands of collapsed buildings. Estimates of the economic damage are in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Haiti’s large shantytown population was particularly hard hit by the tragedy.
As CNN, ABC and every other major corporate media outlet will be quick to point out, Haiti is the poorest country in the entire Western hemisphere. But not a single word is uttered as to why Haiti is poor. Poverty, unlike earthquakes, is no natural disaster.
The answer lies in more than two centuries of U.S. hostility to the island nation, whose hard-won independence from the French was only the beginning of its struggle for liberation.
In 1804, what had begun as a slave uprising more than a decade earlier culminated in freedom from the grips of French colonialism, making Haiti the first Latin American colony to win its independence and the world’s first Black republic. Prior to the victory of the Haitian people, George Washington and then-Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson had supported France out of fear that Haiti would inspire uprisings among the U.S. slave population. The U.S. slave-owning aristocracy was horrified at Haiti’s newly earned freedom.
U.S. interference became an integral part of Haitian history, culminating in a direct military occupation from 1915 to 1934. Through economic and military intervention, Haiti was subjugated as U.S. capital developed a railroad and acquired plantations. In a gesture of colonial arrogance, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was the assistant secretary of the Navy at the time, drafted a constitution for Haiti which, among other things, allowed foreigners to own land. U.S. officials would later find an accommodation with the dictator François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, and then his son Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, as Haiti suffered under their brutal repressive policies.
In the 1980s and 1990s, U.S. policy toward Haiti sought the reorganization of the Haitian economy to better serve the interests of foreign capital. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was instrumental in shifting Haitian agriculture away from grain production, paving the way for dependence on food imports. Ruined Haitian farmers flocked to the cities in search of a livelihood, resulting in the swelling of the precarious shantytowns found in Port-au-Prince and other urban centers.
Who has benefited from these policies? U.S. food producers profited from increased exports to Haitian markets. Foreign corporations that had set up shop in Haitian cities benefitted from the super-exploitation of cheap labor flowing from the countryside. But for the people of Haiti, there was only greater misery and destitution.
Washington orchestrated the overthrow of the democratically elected Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide—not once, but twice, in 1991 and 2004. Haiti has been under a U.S.-backed U.N. occupation for nearly six years. Aristide did not earn the animosity of U.S. leaders for his moderate reforms; he earned it when he garnered support among Haiti’s poor, which crystallized into a mass popular movement. Two hundred years on, U.S. officials are still horrified by the prospect of a truly independent Haiti.
The unstable, makeshift dwellings imposed upon Haitians by Washington’s neoliberal policies have now, for many, been turned into graves. Those same policies are to blame for the lack of hospitals, ambulances, fire trucks, rescue equipment, food and medicine. The blow dealt by such a natural disaster to an economy made so fragile from decades of plundering will greatly magnify the suffering of the Haitian people.
Natural disasters are inevitable, but resource allocation and planning can play a decisive role in mitigating their impact and dealing with the aftermath. Haiti and neighboring Cuba, who are no strangers to violent tropical storms, were both hit hard in 2008 by a series of hurricanes—which, unlike earthquakes, are predictable. While more than 800 lives were lost in Haiti, less than 10 people died in Cuba. Unlike Haiti, Cuba had a coordinated evacuation plan and post-hurricane rescue efforts that were centrally planned by the Cuban government. This was only possible because Cuban society is not organized according to the needs of foreign capital, but rather according to the needs of the Cuban people.
In a televised speech earlier today, President Obama has announced that USAID and the Departments of State and Defense will be working to support the rescue and relief efforts in Haiti in the coming days. Ironically, these are the same government entities responsible for the implementation of the economic and military policies that reduced Haiti to ruins even before the earthquake hit.
Tailgunner Joe: health care not for you
Should a television cameraman get photo credit for a studio image? Can NBC copyright what represents a national address in a neo-public forum? I think not.
Joe Lieberman reminds me of dogged namesake un-American. What more proof do our fellow citizens need that their US House of Lords/Senators mocks a representative democracy?
Senator Lieberman wants the Dems to drop provisions to expand Medicare to Americans aged 55 and above? Would it be that easy? Then conversely, why not expand it to all Americans, all comers actually, and forgo the pages and pages to which the Republicans object? Are Americans guaranteed the pursuit of happiness, but in ill health?
Where’s the Hulk/Rock SNL Obama when a senator really needs throwing out the window?
The ENOUGH OF LIEBERMAN emails have become as ubiquitous as Viagra spam now. Finally, they beg, give us X dollars and we’ll make sure the Connecticut voters don’t reelect him. Sure.
When Lieberman faced a challenger in the 2006 Connecticut Democratic primary election, who stepped in to support him? A veritable who’s who of incumbents. Some even campaigned for Lieberman when he was forced to run as an independent.
Former President Bill Clinton, campaigned for Lieberman on July 24
CT Senator Chris Dodd
IL Senator Dick Durbin
IL Senator Barack Obama
NY Senator Hillary Clinton
NV Senator /Minority Leader Harry Reid
CA Senator Barbara Boxer, campaigned for Lieberman on July 24
CA Senator Diane Feinstein
CO Senator Ken Salazar, campaigned for Lieberman on July 31
DE Senator Joe Biden, campaigned for Lieberman on July 31
HA Senator Daniel Inouye, campaigned for Lieberman on July 31
IN Senator Evan Bayh
NJ Senator Frank Lautenberg
DE Senator Tom Carper
AR Senator Mark Pryor
OR Senator Ron Wyden
NE Senator Ben Nelson
When it’s a choice between you and Lieberman, they choose Lieberman. Between you and the health insurance industry? They let Lieberman decide.
Sarah Palin dons lipstick for Dog Dinner
She’s got a book tour, so what? But Oprah is willing to suffer her for two couch sessions, now Hillary Clinton wants to grant her a beer summit. Foreign leaders can’t get an audience without preconditions. Why is Sarah Palin accorded such stature?
David Letterman protested his contractual obligation to feature reality TV “Survivor” contestants on Late Night. He made them stand at the edge of the stage, at audience level, instead of joining him on the furniture reserved for celebrities and real people lifted from the news. But Letterman’s rejection of the contrived importance of the Survivor casts worked against him. The television audience grown fond of the individual contestants tuned in to see their moment in the spotlight with the king of late night, and felt intimately slighted themselves by Letterman’s haughtiness.
Maybe it’s a lesson the Dem powerbrokers don’t want to relive with John McCain’s last mate from tribe GOP. With the media able to make it all Sarah, all the time, who is the Obama administration to pretend Sarah Palin is just a hockey mom in lipstick –or was it a dog– I’m surprised to have forgotten the distinction.
Actually the distinction is the difference between Sarah Palin being champion idiot at a Dinner Game, or the winner’s date at a Dog Dinner.
I know what they’re doing, and it’s every bit as gruesome as parading the circus freaks. And worse. Those Palin supporters who are also railing at the loss of whatever it was the Constitution meant to them, are going to be proved right.
Of course it depends whether you think Sarah Palin ever had a chance in 2008, or whether she has any viability in 2012. I’m inclined to think not. And I’m pretty sure that’s the consensus of those eagerly pandering to Palin’s political aspirations.
Palin makes an ideal straw candidate. She is who the people want, by “the people” I mean of course, the sans culottes. What’s the new equivalent — the American ill-dressed? Palin appeals to all variety of voters who think politics need a shot of authenticity, whatever. And she hasn’t got a chance, she couldn’t even squeeze a middle school education between now and the start of a 2012 campaign. For the coup de grace, Palin’s character assassins could parade freak two, Levi Johnston, to drop a second shoe.
There’s everything to gain by floating Palin’s balloon, because you prevent opponents from materializing a real one. By all means, inflate Palin’s ego, and let her people’s hopes take flight. Blow, blow, the sky’s the limit.
This is the American two party system at its most efficient. It’s Billie Jean Kings versus Bobby Riggs, all show. Unlike King who only reluctantly agreed to the Battle of the Sexes with the aging baffoon, the Democrats are courting their challenger. The closer she can bring her big mug into camera frame, the bigger the money the Dems can draw from those staking odds.
It’s good for Las Vegas, it’s good for the Dems, it’s good for those who think the Democrats are better then the Repugs, but it’s curtains for democracy.
Darfur, the Israeli lobby & US Democrats
What does it mean for Africa when right wing end-of-the- world-is-near evangelical Christians join forces with the Robert F. Kennedy Center For Human Rights? What does it mean for African Americans when Bush, Obama, and nearly all last year’s presidential candidates from both parties encourage the continuation of an African civil war rather than a political settlement between the parties? What does it mean when 21st century PR firms employ FaceBook, slick viral marketing and millions of dollars to create a simple, satisfying, feel-good excuse for military intervention on the African continent? –from Is There a Save Darfur Industrial Complex?
But Save Darfur has gotten into hot water with aid groups helping the refugees of the conflict.
In February it began a high-profile advertising campaign that included full-page newspaper ads, television spots and billboards calling for more aggressive action in Darfur, including the imposition of a no-flight zone over the region.
Aid groups and even some activists say banning flights could do more harm than good, because it could stop aid flights. Many aid groups fly white airplanes and helicopters that may look similar to those used by the Sudanese government, putting their workers at risk in a no-flight zone.
Sam Worthington, the president and chief executive of InterAction, a coalition of aid groups, complained to Mr. Rubenstein by e-mail that Save Darfur’s advertising was confusing the public and damaging the relief effort.
“I am deeply concerned by the inability of Save Darfur to be informed by the realities on the ground and to understand the consequences of your proposed actions,” Mr. Worthington wrote.
He noted that contrary to assertions in its initial ads, Save Darfur did not represent any of the organizations working in Darfur, and he accused it of “misstating facts.” He said its endorsement of plans that included a no-flight zone and the use of multilateral forces “could easily result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of individuals.”
Another aid group, Action Against Hunger, said in a statement last week that a forced intervention by United Nations troops without the approval of the Sudanese government “could have disastrous consequences that risk triggering a further escalation of violence while jeopardizing the provision of vital humanitarian assistance to millions of people.”
Aid groups also complain that Save Darfur, whose budget last year was $15 million, does not spend that money on aid for the long-suffering citizens of the region.
from the New York Times June 2, 2007 Darfur Advocacy Group Undergoes a Shake-Up
‘The “Save Darfur (Coalition) was created in 2005 by two groups concerned about genocide in the African country – the American Jewish World Service and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum…
‘The coalition has a staff of 30 with expertise in policy and public relations. Its budget was about $15 million in the most recent fiscal year…
from The Washington Post at http://www.overbrook.org/newsletter/06_07/pdfs/AJWS_Washington_Post.pdf
Hillary Clinton on Darfur as she calls for more Pentagon intervention and wars abroad. This is a woman that has no problem with genocide when committed by the US and/ or Israel.
Biden calls for military force in Darfur speaks for itself as he directly calls for a US military assault on Sudan See Joe Biden: Darfur as he calls for US troops to attack Sudan
The American Empire’s quickie whores of Beirut
The Lebanese Right Wing is going into a panic as it is about to lose a major election coming up in that country. Israel is also worried and Barack Obama’s Zionists are getting worried, too. It was time to sex it up in Lebanon and who better than that old American whore, Hillary Clinton, to do the job? Cause Condi went off duty! See Hillary the Harlot Does Beirut in 165-Minute Swoop-In.
What’s she say? She said that Barack Obama don’t care about any damn election results and we’re there for you anyway!
The official apparatus of the ‘Two State Solution’ peace-process industry
Ali Abunimah– “We have to expect that the official apparatus of the peace-process industry — the Hillary Clintons, the Quartets, the Tony Blairs, the Javier Solanas, the Ban Ki-Moons, the whole panoply of official and semi-official Washington think tanks — will carry on with business as usual, trying to make believe that, through their ministrations, a Palestinian state will come into being.”
What is so disingenuous about this ‘peace process industry’ is that both the US and Israel simply have already scrapped what is called the ‘Two State Solution’ in favor of an ‘Israel Kicks Ass Solution’. See Solving Palestine While Israel Destroys It
In fact, a ‘US Kicks Ass Solution’ is behind this new ‘Road to Peace’ where Israel shall be allowed by the US to totally militarily dominate the region as Pentagon servant. And the United Nations is totally on board with the US, too!
In reality, the use of only military, military might alone, is no ‘solution’ on a ‘road to Peace’, and is the complete opposite of that. Barack Obama is just the latest camouflage, in place for this official apparatus of the Two State Solution peace-process industry. The basic game plan is still just more US-made war until the other side totally collapses.
However, the more-war-until-the-other-side-totally-collapses might just well be leading to US total economic collapse. Over the long haul we’ll hardly ever get any real Peace, and certainly that is the case with this parallel economic collapse in process. Meanwhile, the blah, blah, blah goes on and on and on. The dominant elites want ‘Peace’ without Justice, as is always the case.
The only real Peace will be when Palestinians are given their rights and that includes being allowed to be equal partners inside what Zionists now call, the ‘Jewish State’. Can racist America ever come to allow racist ‘Jewish State’ Israel to cede to these just demands? Will we ever seek a ‘One State Solution’ in that treats all as equals? We hardly have that in America, let alone the Middle East. And there is no official peace-process industry that is yet working to dismantle the US war making machine.
The BIG LIE, or just an extremely stupid lie to prep us for more war?
The Republicans justified the whole start of the so-called Global War on Terrorism (the invasion and occupation of Iraq) by claiming that we were all threatened by Weapons of Mass Destruction in the hands of sinister Mr Evil, Saddam Hussein, former ally of the US in trying to bring about regime change in Iran. That was their BIG LIE. But now the Democratic Party nitwits, headed up by Barack and Hee Haw Hillary, have a new BIG LIE missile aimed at us all… CORRECTION! …it is merely an extremely stupid lie. Their lie is that Iran is trying to aim nuclear weapons at …where? why at Europe! What an extremely stupid lie this one is, and as such… it will not sell war like the Republicans’ BIG LIE once did. See Reuters report… Clinton says missile shield to protect (Europe) from Iran … what a bunch of dumb donkeys!
The US and allies pulverized Gaza in order to control the ‘fixing’
Donors pledge $5bn to rebuild Gaza. …What’s $5 billion to the US government when it throws trillions out to the banks and financial institutions in their ‘crisis’? The US government simply destroyed the already semi starved Gaza in an attempt to shove Hamas to the side afterwards during the ‘fixing’ to be arranged! That’s simply their standard morality at the US-Israeli Zionists Central Command. All’s fair in love of Israel and war against the Palestinians is their motto!
Remember when Barack Obama didn’t say a word as CIC Dubya and Israel went about with their ethnic cleansing rampage of destruction against the people living in Gaza? The excuse then was that ‘I am not president yet’, and blah, blah, blah…. ‘One president at a time’… and blah, blah, blah. They just couldn’t act at the time they said, because?…. well just because.
Enter now Zionist Barack Obama, Zionist Joe Biden, and (my favorite Zionist cutie) Zionist Hillary Clinton. Cracks the ears just to hear them rattle on about how they’re going to make sure that only their slave, Abbas of the PLO, can be allowed to control the distribution of ‘aid’ to Gaza. Who does the US government think that they are kidding in the Muslim World? It simply sickens to see the Saudis, Israel, and Dictator Mubarak in Egypt all talking together about how they’re now going to help Gaza out. What a line up of total scum, and the Muslim World is all watching! So much for bringing democacy to the region, since it’s more like bringing Hell.
YES, this is what American liberals bought with their votes. They bought more support for Israel in ethnic cleansing the so-called Holy Land. They bought more support for waging an eternal war for the military industrial complex business called GWOT. They bought more WAR. They bought into destroying Gaza so that they could then ‘fix’ it. They bought into helping murder off the children of Gaza.
NAZI ISRAEL PREPARING FOR “FINAL SOLUTION”
Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day, when Israeli Jews celebrate the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians they stole the “land of Israel” from.
Can the world survive the NAZI State of Israel?
Why Israel is bad for the Jews. Not that Israel gives a damn about Jews outside its borders.
How Israel created Hamas.
The hanged Mussolini, didn’t they? UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak told CNN in an interview on Monday that they have enough evidence to try Donald Rumsfeld for war crimes.
40,000 Americans a day are now losing their jobs, and all the GOP can think about is more tax cuts for the filthy-rich.
Demon Democrats. Hope for justice and peace in the Middle East died this morning, as AIPAC puppet and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared that Israel has a right to commit genocide if Hamas sends a bottle rocket over the border.
Never forget: Terrorism did not exist in the Middle East until the Zionists introduced it to steal the “land of Israel” from the Palestinians.
Israel has always been genocidal
Zionist puppet Hillary Clinton declares she will NOT talk to Hamas. So why the Hell is she going to be Secretary of State, again?
UN President Accuses Israel of Genocide.
Neo-Nazi Israel planning to demolish hospitals in Gaza.
Nazi troops have already massacred over 1,000 people in Gaza.
More Jewish protests against ZioNazi war crimes in Gaza.
Israel preparing to nuke Iran before Bush leaves office next week?
The Bible is a handbook of genocide. After the exodus, God told the Jews to go into the land and drive the natives out, and to kill every man, woman and child who remained. This is beyond dispute, it is right there in the text. So, one must come to one of two conclusions, either God is a genocidal maniac, or the book is a lie written by genocidal maniacs, to excuse their crimes. Either way, Judaism exists because of genocide, and what Israel is doing in Gaza is just a modern recurrence of what the evil they brought to the region over 3,000 years ago. They believe that they are the only people on the planet who matter, and anything they want belongs to them. No wonder the world keeps driving the Jews out.
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
–Martin Luther King, Jr.
Enough. It’s time for a boycott. By Naomi Klein
Excerpts from Thomas McCullock’s Jan 14 notes, thomasmc.com.
Obama to recycle militarism of the Clinton regime
Hillary Clinton Stresses ‘Cooperative Engagement,’ ‘Smart Power’ This supposed ‘smart power’ that Obama’s Hillary will produce in reality is the same Bush-Lite government militarism that Bill Clinton used in his 8 year regime. It produced the set-up for Dubya’s invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan which was the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis through economic warfare, the introduction of the US encirclement of Russia and it’s geopolitical defeat in the Balkans, and last but not least, it produced the Rwandan genocide.
‘Smart Power’? No, it is just more of the same stupidity of a US military-industrial-governmental complex gone completely mad. No CHANGE here, Barack Baby!
Barack’s Rahmbo is not an Arab who will be mopping floors at the White House
Poor Rahmbo! Here he is and he’s already having trouble covering up the arrogant, asshole, know-it-all smugness on his thuggish face, and his dad goes and runs his mouth. Well what can you expect? These terrorists are proud when their sons grow up and carry on in the family tradition (to paraphrase Hank Williams Jr.)! What did Dear Old Dad say?
“Obviously he’ll influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn’t he? What is he, an Arab? He’s not going to be mopping floors at the White House.”
No indeed! That’s for Blacks and Arabs to do, is it not? Now look what you’ve done to your son, Rahmbo, Dad! There’s only one thing he can do for your discourteously overt racism. He must ‘apologize’. Obama aide apologises to US-Arabs
We now all feel so much better about the new, but old, grouping around Barack Obama. With Gates and Hillary coming on board, we’ll have perfection! Barack can spend a little more time in picking the new White House dog, and cute an lovable he will be, no doubt!
How Obama should apologize about Lipstick, and why.
kind of a pictorial essay.
As to do I really believe he meant Sarah Palin is ugly, well, he didn’t say she was, McCain, however, jumped to the conclusion that somebody was disparaging her looks.
Why? Is he or she or both of them together that sensitive to the subject?
Must have hit a sore spot.
Let’s not forget that McCain used the Term Lipstick on a Pig first, to describe Hillary Clinton.
And said that Chelsea Clinton, who to my knowledge has never run for any elected office, was ugly, and that the reason was that Janet Reno was her father.
So why the sudden Knight in Shining Armor routine, and why does he automatically assume that Palin is the target of the Pig comment?
These questions and many more answered on the next episode of Doap…
Product Obama
“At the time when the American military industrial complex is despised around the world, [Barack Obama] is a front man out of central casting which will buy it more goodwill and new room to maneuver in the first 15 minutes after being sworn in that John McCain could in the next 100 years.”
Counterpoint columnist Joe Bageant was given the following essay by an unnamed political consultant:
Life in the Post-political Age.
Much has been written by political pundits in their attempt to explain the unexpected victory of Senator Barack Obama over Senator Hillary Clinton in this year’s Democratic Presidential Primary. When looking at the results of this race, none of the conventional political math that would help one handicap the outcome would make one conclude that Senator Obama would win this contest.
Inside a Democratic Party primary there is no demographic or political reason that a male first term African American senator from Illinois with an unorthodox name should come any where close to beating a white female senator, who happens to be the wife of the last Democratic President whose approval ratings are still above 70% with Democratic voters and who also happened to earn the endorsements of the substantial parts of the Democratic Party establishment.
The conventional analysis focused on the poor quality of the campaign run by Senator Clinton, her vote in support of the Iraq war and her advocacy of the cynical center-right triangulation policies of her husband, which soured her campaign to many primary voters and especially to Democratic Party activists. Senator Obama’s on the other hand was credited with running an innovative and inspiring campaign that excited primary voters and brought many new and especially younger voters into the electoral process.
There is some truth to this analysis, but as a whole it misses the underlying social change in society that had already laid the groundwork for a possible Obama victory. To get a clearer understanding of the results, we must better understand what this social change is and how its impact is far more significant than the dynamics of the two respective campaigns.
The underlying social change that led to the Obama victory is the unprecedented extent to which the narrative of popular consumer culture, and the media that drives it, has become the dominant influence on how Americans think, formulate their ideas and understand the world around them.
The most important result of this process has been the steady and consistent depoliticization of American society, to an extent that we can make the case that we are living at the dawn of the post political age.
The two primary features of the post political age are a politics completely drained of all its contents and ability or willingness to be used as an agent of change in social or economic policy, and its full integrations into the world of American popular, consumer and entertainment culture. To such an extent that there exists today a seamless web between our political, economic, media and consumer cultures wherein the modes and values of one are completely integrated and compatible with the others.
It should not come as a surprise that the dominant ideas and mores of popular culture have become the dominant ideas of our society. Popular culture is the breaker of customs, prejudice, tradition and relevant historical knowledge.
It is a result of this dynamic that the two consistent winners in American politics over the last 30 years have been the cultural left and the economic right. Despite the massive organizing drive of the religious right over the past three decades, they are further away from reversing the cultural liberalization of American society than when they started. On others side of the ledger, organized labor outside of a few urban pockets and industries is no longer a relevant force in American life. The ever greater electoral activism of both of these groups is generally misunderstood as a show of strength; in fact, it is the exact opposite. It is the desperate fight of the losing side of the American economic, cultural and political scene.
In essence the same forces that make it possible for the rapid acceptance of ideas such as gay marriage are the same force which can create a society that will accept massive social inequalities.
In the post political world and the candidates who can best thrive in it have tremendous appeal to the economic elites, a system that does not dwell on issues and will never ask the question, “who has power and why”, but simultaneously creates a social and media environment of stupefying distractions while destroying traditional social mores (under-credited as a source of much social solidarity). This can only benefit their continued rule of that society.
In such a setting our political choices like our consumer choices, regardless of the product, are primarily about what makes us more fulfilled and feel better about ourselves.
Senator Obama’s campaign understood much better the impact of these changes on our electoral system than any of his opponents’ campaigns. In the post political world, the campaign that is less political and less issue-based but is savvier in using new modes of communication technology will be the campaign to win the greatest market share of the electorate. The candidate in this case, Obama, was not a political entity but, in essence a product, an ornament that made his supporters feel better about themselves.
One of the most telling facts about the Obama’s constituency outside of African Americans (whose support needs no explanation) is that it is a coalition of people who need or demand the least amount of social benefit from our government. They are the under politicized younger voters and upper middle class whites. The two groups, coincidently, are the ones most influenced by trends in consumer popular culture and have the greatest of ease using the latest technologies.
In commercial advertising it is the poor commercial that lists the seventeen functions of the product being marketed. The best commercials are based on image associations entirely unrelated to the functions of the actual product. In the post political world, when the same principle is applied to the political realm, it makes complete sense how Barack Obama no longer is a black man with a strange name but the iPod to Hillary Clinton’s cell phone. In the world of toys it is the one that stands out the most is the most marketable.
The reality of the post political period is best highlighted in the failed themes and ideas of Barack Obama’s two primary opponents. The Clinton campaign was based on pushing two concurrent ideas: the inevitability factor of her candidacy and the other was her supposed experience. The only thing inevitable in the post political period is ceaseless change, which she could hardly offer while running against the candidate of “Change”. How valuable of an asset can experience be in a culture where knowledge, wisdom and history are frowned upon?
John Edwards campaign on the other hand was dead on arrival. His theme and emphasis was America’s ever widening class differences, a platform as truthful as it was irrelevant. The use of the word “class” will end any political career in America. That truth violates the primary narrative that our elite use to justify their legitimacy, which is the supposed meritocratic nature of America society. While the post political constituencies have absolutely no interest in class, whose very acknowledgment are the bases of all real politics and whose acknowledgement would only lead to an existential crisis in its ranks. In the post political period the only differences allowed can be in style and modes of consumption.
Given all this as the background, what are we to make of the campaign of the candidate of hope, audacity and change? The answer lies in understanding Senator Obama’s appeal to the brighter sections of the economic and political elite, and more importantly in the lack of any organized opposition against him, of the kind that within a matter of days destroyed Howard Dean’s campaign in 2004.
At the precise moment that the intellectual underpinnings of conservative free market ideas that have dominated politics for the past 30 years are crumbling across the globe. Obama calls for a post ideological and partisan world.
At the time when the American military industrial complex is despised around the world, he is a front man out of central casting which will buy it more goodwill and new room to maneuver in the first 15 minutes after being sworn in that John McCain could in the next 100 years.
His very presence, the color of his skin, the very strangeness of his name is the best guarantee of his betrayal of the expectations of the constituencies that will vote to elect him. Barack Obama is in short order a far more reassuring prospect for the continued dominance of the financial elite than another four years of neo-conservative rule which in an almost historically unique combination of greed, ill will, incompetence and stupidity have brought the country to the edge of disaster.
Audacity yes, change hardly.
I want more change in the White House than just skin color!
Barack Obama is proving himself to be little more than Joe Lieberman in blackface. Oy gevalt. Cowardly Dems in the Senate (Led by Obama the Coward) passed FISA, out of fear that big meanie Bush might say something bad about them if they didn’t. As if he won’t, anyway. Duh! [detail]
As much as I dislike Hillary Clinton, at least she had the decency to vote against it.
John W. McCain didn’t even bother to show up for the vote…
The ACLU has announced it will fight the unconstitutional law in court.
Civil Liberties? WHAT civil liberties??? Bush kills Civil Liberties Board.
Time to put on your jack boots and Seig Hiel! US military to monitor internet to quell dissent.
Standing up for the truth. SC state employee quits rather than lower flag for toxic Senator Jesse Helms.
Ted Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer, surprised the Senate by showing up to vote on the Medicaid bill yesterday.
The screwing of America. Food manufactures quietly shrinking product sizes, while keeping same packaging and prices.
Marriage equality. MA Senate to consider repealing law that prevents gays from other states from marrying there.
Phil Graham has a mental slowdown, and calls USA a nation of whiners for caring that the GOP has destroyed the economy. If only we’d just focus on how much better off the filthy-rich are, and forget about everyone else.
Life imitates art. Paradise, CA — subject of the Eagles song The LastResort, and inspiration for the Showtime series Weeds — evacuated for wildfire. “Somebody laid the mountains low, while the town got high.”
Excerpts from Thomas McCullock’s notes July 10, thomasmc.com.
The Democrats are spending $400 million to fund war with Iran
Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have signed off giving their support to engaging Iran in a new war planned by the Bush adminstration. In fact, the Democratic Party has signed the checks to do so… $400 million worth of checks! America’s best investigative reporter, Seymour Hersh is helping uncover this secret deal between the Democratic and Republican parties to keep the war going, and to even spread it further, to Iran. Yes, Barack is for ‘change’… but for the worse. Why is he supporting more war?
Transcript Of July 2 Seymour Hersh interview—-
PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, THE REAL NEWS NETWORK: Hi. Welcome to the first in our series of interviews with Seymour Hersh, famed author for The New Yorker. In a recent piece titled “Preparing the Battlefield,” Seymour Hersh says that the leadership of the Democratic Party has authorized spending over $400 million in support of a presidential finding that greatly expands the use of secret operations inside Iran, including perhaps the use of lethal force. Here’s what Seymour Hersh wrote in his piece.The Democratic leadership’s agreement to commit hundreds of millions of dollars for more secret operations in Iran was remarkable, given the general concerns of officials like Gates, Fallon, and many others. “The oversight process has not kept pace—it’s been co-opted” by the Administration, the person familiar with the contents of the Finding said. “The process is broken, and this is dangerous stuff we’re authorizing.”
The interview continues at Seymour Hersh: The secret war in Iran where there is also a video copy, too.
Is your hate of Hillary all your own?
If you’re indulging yourself gloating about Hillary’s dashed presidential aspirations, you might consider who’s cheering with you. As the battle for the nomination dragged on, Ms. Clinton faced near universal scorn, whipped up gleefully by all of media-dom. When has the media reported anything that you’ve discovered was truthful? Anything?
(Man’s traditional response to threatening women, midwives or healers? They’re witches!)
Unless you have been keeping in touch with Hillary Clinton personally, I would hesitate to say you don’t know if she has been represented objectively. Unless you’ve seen her in person, can you really say if her head’s the size of a pumpkin? Have you seen, heard, felt pangs of intuition that weren’t spun by the waves of an electronic transmission fashioned over an editor’s desk?
I’ve become rather suspicious that Ms. Clinton may have posed the biggest threat to the powers that be, to the beltway and the corporate media, and that’s why she was painted with such dastard derision.
Maybe?
The unanimity and height of disrespect shown in the catty ridicule made of Hillary has an identical scent really of an earlier smear campaign, the ulterior motives now well documented, against the embarrassment “beyond words” of Hillary’s First Husband, Bill.
President Clinton was too centrist for my taste, but it turns out he made some inroads for the people even despite being mostly thwarted by the corporate multinationals and the bankers.
Was the combined Clinton battle experience going to be crucial facing the still predominantly neoconservative-crony Washington establishment? The DC heavyweights are criminals and profiteers to the last, do we expect them to invite a reformer into the White House?
As much as they hated the Clintons, and Hillary Clinton in her own right, the power brokers appear to be smitten by Barack Obama. What does that say to you?
Some think it’s a sign that everyone’s ready for change. Some think the Republicans are content to let a Democrat be left to pick up Bush’s pieces. A friend of mine quotes T. S. Eliot:
“An election is coming. Universal peace is declared and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.”
I think the vociferous appetite the Neocons have shown in devouring America’s treasury at the expense of the middle class indicates they don’t intend to leave even a piece until it’s in their bank account. The bad guys are not through. In these days of irradiation, they do not need their poultry kept live.
The media favoritism of Barack over Hillary says to me, they’ll abide a black man on their porch because they have no intention of letting him inside. They can serenade him even, confident they can excuse their ultimate inhospitality on the Appalachian problem. If American voters prove more progressive than they want, Diebold’s blackboxes will smite our great last hope.
Republican McCain has been criticized by none of the press. With Hillary out of the way, the press has already started to unleash on Obama, and will now be now free to lavish the erstwhile witch with the affection they now display for her term-limited husband.
America’s masters needed one heck of a ringer to face the Bush blow-back. A presumptive presumptuous first black president will prove just the straw man they need. Even the most cynical voter will not be surprised that white America is not ready to elect a black president.
All that hoopla about Obama needing to distance himself from his pastor’s unpatriotic rants was very telling. Do you remember Reverend Wright’s chief focus? God Damn America, yes, but his chief refrain? America’s racism. White America doesn’t want to believe it is racist, but it doesn’t make it any less true.
Apparently racism is gone if we want it gone. To decry its persistence is to break the self-hypnotic spell and bring racism back. Blame the messenger apparently.
It is not racist to predict that Obama faces entrenched racism. It would be swell to think America is otherwise, and the media would love for us to believe it. But they and the lobbyists and their owners Big Pharma, Big Agra, Big Oil, the financiers and the war machine are banking on McCain.
McCain Lieberman vs. Obama Clinton
What are Vegas bookmakers giving for odds? Check Sportsbook, Bodog, Sportsbetting, Gamblers Palace, and Bet Us.
A push polling pop-up from PollingPoint
I just found this pop-up beneath my browser window. It purports to ask which candidate I favor. Do you sense which one PollingPoint favors?
Let’s work our way from the outside in.
Barack Obama is pictured in the light of a harsh flash, as if snapped at night. It probably resembles photographs you might have of friends or coworkers at a party or on the town. Though we’re looking at him at eye level, he’s looking down at someone. He appears to be laughing. His glassy eyes match the suggestion that he is also sweaty.
The picture of Hillary Clinton is taken from even closer, and it captures her reaction in a personal exchange. Clinton’s unguarded expression is incongruous by being not so flattering. Her lined face betrays concern, if also worry. The intimate proximity, our slight height advantage, and the soft home/office lighting, subvert the deference we would otherwise grant Clinton’s celebrity as former First Lady and potential presidential nominee.
Both Obama and Hillary are facing center left. Ready to receive them is Poppa McCain, facing squarely right.
John McCain is shown in a glow of stage lights. We are at his feet looking up, and from a regal distance. In fact he is holding us off with an upraised hand as he smiles confidently watching the Democratic rivals.