Now that the smoke from the burning wreckage of the GOP ticket has started to clear, Sarah Palin, in addition to serving members of the media moose chili and moose hot dogs, is mulling over how best to keep giving me material to write about her.
Senator Ted Stevens appears to be the very best way, it would seem.
The embattled Sen. Ted Stevens is still in a tight race for his seat against Democratic Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich. Stevens was convicted of seven federal corruption charges in October for filing false statements on Senate ethics forms.
Some have speculated that if Stevens wins, he would be expelled from the Senate, meaning there would be a special election in which Palin could run.
Palin told CNN that at this point, she wouldn't declare whether she would or wouldn't consider a run.
So, let me see if I have this right? Stevens wins. Gets chucked from the Senate. A special race is held. Palin runs for the vacant Senate seat and wins. And thus thrusts herself right back into the national spotlight.
Honestly, Sarah should perhaps be careful what she wishes for here. She has just finished blaming her party's leadership for the loss of the McCain ticket last week - throwing under the bus many people who are going back to work on the Senate floor. Her credentials and knowledge on very basic and important issues are sketchy at best . Perhaps the best thing that could happen to her is to slink back to Anchorage, start getting tutored in the finer points by the Karl Rove Extreme Political Makeover team, and be ready to pop up on the national stage again a little while down the road, wounds healed and leaner, meaner and more polished.
If Sarah, fresh off this defeat, reports to the Senate for active duty without having smoothed her rougher political edges, it could end up being a terrible decision for her as someone with an eye towards a big future in the GOP party. She is, by all accounts, not someone who will reach across the aisle, and in a Democrat-dominated Senate, she runs a very big risk of finding herself alone on an island of extremism, watching more moderate colleagues like, for example, her former running-mate John McCain work closely with Senate Dems. Add to the mix that the Senate is the traditional home of the "Washington insiders" that she has spent so many weeks disparaging, and I'm not sure she's going to find a ton of helping hands. The remaining Republicans in government have far too much to lose and to protect at this point. I sincerely doubt they will want to align themselves with such a potentially polarizing and inexperienced figure.
The Senate floor is a place of vigorous debate by intelligent and experienced politicians - masters of saying one thing, doing another and protecting their own backsides expertly. There is an old saying that if you don't know who the sucker at the table is after twenty minutes in a poker game, you're the sucker. I have a sneaking suspicion that when put into the Senate shark tank, "Senator" Palin would find quite quickly that she is the sucker. In short: she simply is not ready.
I, for one, would like to see it happen. My feeling is that the sooner we get used to the idea of Senator Palin, the better the odds we will never have to get used to the idea of President Palin.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
MADNESS!
From CBS News:CBS News correspondent Priya David spoke with several compensation consultants who said that, even in this economy, firms are worried that, if they don't pay out the bonuses, they'll lose their top talent -- people they want to keep around for when pastures turn green again. On The Early Show Wednesday, David reported that lawmakers and taxpayers alike are concerned about where the money for those bonuses will come from. For Wall Street workers still employed, there could be a hefty bonus in their checks next month. According to a report from financial news agency Bloomberg, Goldman Sachs, for example, has set aside $6.8 billion for bonuses, and Morgan Stanley, $6.4 billion.
Countrymen, it is time to resurrect the old chant of protest "no taxation without representation." No one in Washington gives a rat's ass about us, the American taxpayers, in this $700 billion bailout fiasco. Especially, King Paulson - former head of Goldman Sachs - who is apparently making this up as he goes along under the "broad discretion" provided by the bailout bill:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The government has abandoned the original centerpiece of its $700 billion rescue effort for the financial system and will not use the money to purchase troubled bank assets.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Wednesday that the administration will continue to use $250 billion of the program to purchase stock in banks as a way to bolster their balance sheets and encourage them to resume more normal lending. He also announced that the administration was looking at a major expansion of the program into the markets that provide support for credit card debt, auto loans and student loans.
Fat cats and their congressional feeders. Madness!
How Can You Be So Obtuse, Detroit?
Thomas Friedman recalls being flabbergasted at our American car manufacturers' shortsightedness:Last September, I was in a hotel room watching CNBC early one morning. They were interviewing Bob Nardelli, the C.E.O. of Chrysler, and he was explaining why the auto industry, at that time, needed $25 billion in loan guarantees. It wasn’t a bailout, he said. It was a way to enable the car companies to retool for innovation. I could not help but shout back at the TV screen: “We have to subsidize Detroit so that it will innovate? What business were you people in other than innovation?” If we give you another $25 billion, will you also do accounting?
My head thinks we should refuse government life support to Detroit and its antiquated business model. My heart worries about the workers left behind when the Motor City crumbles.
"Our First Colored President"
Lindsay Lohan: Actress. Comedienne. Impresario. Auteur. Cocaine Hoover. Wordsmith. Moron:
"It's an amazing feeling, our first COLORED president." Well, at least she didn't say our first "negra" president or "dat dem boy der is miscegenated!"
Lohan also claims that celebrities helped influence the election by getting out the vote. I contend that Obama would have won Utah if it wasn't for Lohan's, DiCaprio's and the rest of the arugula-eaters' urgings.
I'm not really outraged by this comment. Just gave me an excuse to poke fun at Lohan. Palin-Lohan 2012!
"It's an amazing feeling, our first COLORED president." Well, at least she didn't say our first "negra" president or "dat dem boy der is miscegenated!"
Lohan also claims that celebrities helped influence the election by getting out the vote. I contend that Obama would have won Utah if it wasn't for Lohan's, DiCaprio's and the rest of the arugula-eaters' urgings.
I'm not really outraged by this comment. Just gave me an excuse to poke fun at Lohan. Palin-Lohan 2012!
Johnny Law
Driving towards the silver mines on the outskirts of Butte, Montana for work this morning, I was struck by the abuse of power exhibited by the police officer in the car in front of me.We pulled up to a red light, the police car third in line waiting to proceed, my car behind his. It was an unusually long light and the cop had run out of patience. He blared his siren, crossed the double yellow line, passed the civilian cars waiting dutifully for the light to change and traversed the intersection, causing oncoming, green-lighted traffic to apply the brakes and make way for King Po-Po.
This incident bothers me. Cops drunk with power. Who knows - maybe Sergeant Impatient is just a few more siren blares away from going full-blown Richard Gere in "Internal Affairs." Perhaps he decides to break some bigger rules, wins an election and sets up a prisoner camp somewhere in Cuba off the jurisdictional grid.
Obey the rules of the road when acting under the color of law. Goes for Officer Gere. Goes for Officer Bush. The open spigot of lawlessness trickles down.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
The Realization Part II
Must be a hell of a thing finding out you're the next President of the United States.
Who Is Jack Knowledge?
He or she is the blogging equivalent of Cringer because he or she is "scared of his [or her] own shadow." When the media starts snooping around, trying to figure out his or her identity, he or she cowers under WAP's legs, shivering with terror."Jack Cringer, stop trembling. The blog audience is our friend."
U.S. to invade Greenland, Denmark, Ocean
BREAKING: The New York Times is reporting today that a hydrogen bomb is missing from the U.S.'s arsenal, and Greenland, Denmark and The Ocean are prime suspects. The H-bomb has been missing for 40 years. *gulp*
When last seen, the bomb was one of four aboard an Air Force B-52 bomber that crashed on a frozen bay near Thule Air Force Base in northern Greenland on Jan. 21, 1968. At first, all four bombs were unaccounted for, according to a front-page article in The New York Times on Jan. 23, 1968:
The Defense Department said that some of the wreckage had been observed on the ice by helicopters and that other pieces of the plane might have burned into or through the ice.The Pentagon announcement made it clear that the bombs had not been found. It was not certain whether they had scattered on top of the ice cap or fallen with the bomber into several hundred feet of water.
Two years later, the United States and Denmark reported that they agreed “that the accident caused no danger to man or animal and plant life in the area,” according to The Times. The 96-page report of the investigation indicated that all four nuclear warheads aboard the plane had disintegrated on impact. Case closed.
Well, maybe not, the BBC says this week.
Declassified documents that the BBC obtained under the United States Freedom of Information Act indicate that only three of the bombs were accounted for, and that the United States searched secretly for the fourth bomb, without success.
With only 70 days left in office, it is unclear whether President Bush will have enough time to successfully launch a full-scale invasion of Greenland, Denmark and the entire Atlantic Ocean, but those effers have WMD and he will stop at nothing to find it. Perhaps instead of establishing a Presidential Library (entire collection to consist of one unread copy of My Pet Goat), Dubya can slap on some SCUBA gear and find this rogue WMD before it falls into the hands of the bad guys. Just a suggestion.
Warm Apple Pie Revealed
Vocabulary and erudition seem familiar? Verbal dexterity and grace distinctive, but difficult to place? Oscar Wilde? Mark Twain? Garrison Keilor? Close.
Though I am loathe to unveil the secret identity of our very own Warm Apple Pie, the combination of his remarkable eloquence and his admirable patriotism compels me. Behold, fulfilling his end of the social contract Rousseau spoke of as incumbent upon all citizens of a free democracy, watch as Warm Apple Pie attempts to enlist in the Army.
Though I am loathe to unveil the secret identity of our very own Warm Apple Pie, the combination of his remarkable eloquence and his admirable patriotism compels me. Behold, fulfilling his end of the social contract Rousseau spoke of as incumbent upon all citizens of a free democracy, watch as Warm Apple Pie attempts to enlist in the Army.
F**k AIG! And F**k You Too Terry Bradshaw!
Will AIG ever learn? Will Congress ever learn to just let hulking, incondite corporations succumb to "natural causes" - i.e., greed, graft and excess? Will the citizenry ever learn to stop electing congressional nitwits who spend like Sarah Palin at Neiman Marcus?
After over $100 billion in eleemosynary outreach from our socialist government, the beer keeps flowing like wine at AIG swank-fests. From the horse's mouth:
AIG Advisor Group will host its 2008 Asset Management Conference (AMC) at the Point Hilton Squaw Peak hotel and conference facility in Phoenix, Arizona on November 5 – 7, 2008. Nearly 150 financial planners, who operate their own independent businesses and are not AIG employees will participate in the event. Financial planners attending the meeting represent 23% of total AIG Advisor Group revenue as of September 30, 2008.
The goal of the AMC is to provide an educational, training and networking forum for financial planners. The AMC meeting agenda includes seven general sessions, twenty-two classes, and two working lunches. Topics range from alternative investment products and advisory services strategies to business-building programs, productivity tools, and portfolio management.
Eighteen participating product sponsor firms are underwriting $320,000 of the total meeting cost of $343,000. The company’s portion of the total meeting costs is under $25,000. Additionally, financial planner attendees are responsible for their travel-related expenses, registration fee ($199), and guest registration fee ($250).
Now, from newsnet5 undercover reporter Josh Bernstein, who attended the conference in cognito:
AIG made significant efforts to disguise the conference, making sure there were no AIG logos or signs anywhere on the property.
An AIG spokesperson said there were no AIG markers in order to minimize signage costs and to lower the company's profile.
A hotel employee told ABC15, "We can't even say the word [AIG]." . . .
The ABC15 Investigators went undercover at the resort and found AIG executives having poolside meetings while drinking coffee and working out at the spa while other attendees were in conference rooms for seminars.
We also watched as half a dozen of the executives went to dinner at McCormick & Schmick's at the Camelback Esplanade, racking up a bill of more than $400 for drinks, appetizers, and meals.
The three-day event at the resort was also supposed to feature hall of fame football quarterback Terry Bradshaw as a motivational guest speaker, but the company canceled Bradshaw's appearance shortly before the start of the conference, according to a company spokesperson.
According to the Washington Speakers Bureau, which manages Bradshaw's speaking engagements, he commands a fee of more than $40,000 per appearance.
40,000 in cake for f**king Terry Bradshaw?!?! As a motivational speaker?!?! $40,000 for his inspiring tale of preserverance and triumph, defying the odds, to become the only member of Fox's insufferable Sunday NFL panel without hair?!?! Sh*t, for $100 bucks, I'll come to the conference, tickle the corporate stiffs with "you must be a redneck" jokes for an hour, then go on a roadtrip across the country, stopping at every home to hand out free AIG ball caps and free kicks to the junk.
Are you crappin' me, AIG?!?! I'd rather huddle together in Hobo Jungles and endure bread lines, than give this gargantuan joke of a company another nickel.
New Era of Civility
Always rather (pronounced "raaah-ther" because I'm British nobility, as far as you know) genteel, the United States Congress and its members are taking great pains to restore an era of civility and respect to Washington. In the immediate wake of President-elect Obama's historic election, members of Congress of both parties have been falling all over themselves to speak in gracious and conciliatory terms about working together, rising above petty differences in this hour of national if not global crisis, and working together to get America back on track. Then there's this guy.
Rep. Paul Broun (brace yourself, because this might come as a bit of a shock -- he's a Republican from Georgia) said on Monday that he fears that Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist or fascist dictatorship. Yes. Really. Citing a July speech by Obama, in which the then-Democratic presidential candidate called for a civilian force to take some of the national security burden off the military, Broun sagely noted:
Rep. Paul Broun (brace yourself, because this might come as a bit of a shock -- he's a Republican from Georgia) said on Monday that he fears that Obama will establish a Gestapo-like security force to impose a Marxist or fascist dictatorship. Yes. Really. Citing a July speech by Obama, in which the then-Democratic presidential candidate called for a civilian force to take some of the national security burden off the military, Broun sagely noted:
"That's exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it's exactly what the Soviet Union did," Broun said. "When he's proposing to have a national security force that's answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he's showing me signs of being Marxist."Just to make sure no one missed it that the sitting Congressman actually compared the President-elect of the United States to Adolph Hitler, he added for good measure:
"We can't be lulled into complacency... You have to remember that Adolf Hitler was elected in a democratic Germany. I'm not comparing him to Adolf Hitler. What I'm saying is there is the potential."Oh, so you're not saying saying he is Hitler, only that he might become Hitler. Well, yeah, that's muuuuuch better. Thanks for clarifying. Wurzelbacher/Broun '12 can't be far off. Sarah Palin for Secretary of State?
Palin on Election Loss: It's those damned Mexicans
Governor Palin spoke to Fox News, and Fox News studiously avoided trying to make her look stupid. Unfortunately, You Betcha! can't see an open microphone without deep-throating it with her gag-reflex-free ignorance. She said she was not surprised at the GOP loss, considering that it represented the same failed policies of the previous eight years - most of which were the fault of the Republicans. Nice work Sarah. Listen, we all KNOW that's why you lost, but usually right after you lose you don't throw your entire party under the bus in order to exonerate yourself. And on Fox News. I hear that's a popular station for "your folks."
But Naylin Paylin went on to explain a few of her other MENSA level theories for the GOP loss, including their crushing inability to "get the Hispanic vote."
Oh, is that what did you in, Sarah? What braintrust came to that conclusion? Was it that massive Hispanic vote that typically goes Republican in those swing states like, for example, all of them? You guys lost by two hundred electoral votes - you think your inability to get a minority group to vote Republican that doesn't actually typically vote Republican and that lives mostly in states you either DID win or were NEVER going to win was what did it? Funny, if I had to peg any minority group that did you in, I probably would have said it was the African-American vote, and your inability to not have that group vote against you 99% to 1% (figures unofficial). Or the Jewish vote in a swing state like Florida. Jews voted for Obama by a margin approaching 80% to 20% as reported by CNN - an almost unbelievable figure. Sigh. What color is the sky in your world, Sarah?
But you're totally spot-on, as usual, Governor. It's those damned Hispanics. Good thing you don't have none of them up in lilly-white Alaska. They wreck everything.
But Naylin Paylin went on to explain a few of her other MENSA level theories for the GOP loss, including their crushing inability to "get the Hispanic vote."
Oh, is that what did you in, Sarah? What braintrust came to that conclusion? Was it that massive Hispanic vote that typically goes Republican in those swing states like, for example, all of them? You guys lost by two hundred electoral votes - you think your inability to get a minority group to vote Republican that doesn't actually typically vote Republican and that lives mostly in states you either DID win or were NEVER going to win was what did it? Funny, if I had to peg any minority group that did you in, I probably would have said it was the African-American vote, and your inability to not have that group vote against you 99% to 1% (figures unofficial). Or the Jewish vote in a swing state like Florida. Jews voted for Obama by a margin approaching 80% to 20% as reported by CNN - an almost unbelievable figure. Sigh. What color is the sky in your world, Sarah?
But you're totally spot-on, as usual, Governor. It's those damned Hispanics. Good thing you don't have none of them up in lilly-white Alaska. They wreck everything.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Energy Independance
Recently horse-whipped GOP candidate for president, Sen. John McCain, became well-known throughout the campaign for his insistence that America possessed the renewable energy resources to become completely energy independent. McCain, according to scientists and energy industry experts, was wrong. Of course, I'm guessing none of those so-called "experts" knew that McCain was talking about his own, seemingly endless natural gas resources. Easy on the Metamucil, old man.
The Repo Man Is Coming
Duke: The lights are growing dim Otto. I know a life of crime has led me to this sorry fate, and yet, I blame society. Society made me what I am.
Otto: That's bullshit. You're a white suburban punk just like me.
Word on he street - or more precisely, TPM - is that Republican repo men have hopped a flight to Wasilla to reclaim the parrot's pantsuits:
Palin's father, Chuck Heath, said his daughter spent the day Saturday trying to figure out what belongs to the RNC.
"She was just frantically ... trying to sort stuff out," Heath said. "That's the problem, you know, the kids lose underwear, and everything has to be accounted for.
"Nothing goes right back to normal," he said.
Frantically searching for lost underwear. I have a suggestion as to where she should start looking:
***UPDATE*** As Andrew Sullivan points out, she lied about this, too.
Rewriting history
The Anchorage Daily News interviewed Gov. Sarah Palin yesterday, and it is clear that she is going to continue her pattern of evasive, non-sensical and misleading responses to simple questions. Her answers ranged from silly to delusional to lying, but don't be fooled; this is a smart woman intent on rewriting history.
Reflecting on what went wrong in the campaign, Gov. Palin expressed her frustration at the [presumably liberal elite/mainstream] news media, over what she perceived as spreading misperceptions about her:
The following exchange has no real relevance to my point, but her total inability to string together a noun adjective and verb into a coherent sentence continues to amuse and appall me.
Q. Do you think it's going to be difficult for the state to make a case for earmarks, given that you and John McCain were so outspoken against them?
A. Not so much the case being made more difficult for Alaska in requesting but we'd better make sure that every earmark we request is in the nation's best interest and is something that has been vetted and seen the light of day via public participation.
Reflecting on what went wrong in the campaign, Gov. Palin expressed her frustration at the [presumably liberal elite/mainstream] news media, over what she perceived as spreading misperceptions about her:
"Some of the goofy things, like who was Trig's mom, you know. And well [raises hand], I'm Trig's mom. And do you wanna see my medical records to prove that? And days would go by before mainstream media would even try to correct that, that yeah, OK, it's proven that she actually is Trig's mom."Actually, Sarah, about that? Yeah, well, turns out you never actually released your medical records, did you? No, in case you're confused, you didn't. You said you would, sure, but you didn't. You did release a 2-page letter from your doctor saying you were in excellent health (which, admittedly, is better than the 1-page letter Obama's doctor wrote to the same effect), but you didn't even do that until 12 hours before the election. So let's be perfectly clear here: you did NOT release your medical records. Pretending you did, implying you did, insinuating you did, wishing you did, all well and good. But it doesn't actually change the fact that, you know, you didn't.
The following exchange has no real relevance to my point, but her total inability to string together a noun adjective and verb into a coherent sentence continues to amuse and appall me.
Q. Do you think it's going to be difficult for the state to make a case for earmarks, given that you and John McCain were so outspoken against them?
A. Not so much the case being made more difficult for Alaska in requesting but we'd better make sure that every earmark we request is in the nation's best interest and is something that has been vetted and seen the light of day via public participation.
The Obama Files
London's Daily Telegraph has published this list of fifty things you, yes you, might not know about PEBO. Among the most interesting are:
- He collects Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comics
- He was known as "O'Bomber" at high school for his skill at basketball
- He has read every Harry Potter book
- He kept a pet ape called Tata while in Indonesia
- He applied to appear in a black pin-up calendar while at Harvard but was rejected by the all-female committee
O'Bomber? Exsqeeze me? Don't you think that nickname is something that Sarah Barracuda could have used during her hate sermons? O'Bomber and the bomber. Pure gold. But, alas, our liberal media hid this from the people. Never mind his pet iguana named Cockanballs.
The Flip Side of Obama's Victory
Sometimes when someone who you expect to screw up most of the time because they have a history of doing so does not screw up, you are overly effusive with your praise and blunder into actually being insulting and reading more into one victory than is appropriate. This is a phenomenon happening with great frequency right now in the "rest of the world" and its reaction to Senator Obama's sweeping victory last week.
I want to point out one example here, which is an article written by Steven Wells, contributor to both the UK Guardian and also Philadelphia Weekly here in the States. The article can be found here and I will just address some of the points made.
Mr. Wells writes this open letter to America ostensibly as a congratulations, but it veers hard right into a rebuke of America's history virtually in its totality. That is the danger of Senator Obama's election - it does not change history, but what it does do is give us a clearer picture of how some people have seen America because now they've decided to tell us how they "really felt" about us, seeing as how as of last Tuesday we moved past our racist history. And that is the other danger - that the world has read far too much into this result.
In this article, Mr. Wells congratulates us for the election result - and lots of other things about America that he finds to be "really cool" but admonishes us for some of the things we've done... and then just keeps on going:
But there’s the other stuff.
You know, overthrowing democratically elected governments, supporting fascists, supporting the Khmer Rouge, supporting Islamic fundamentalists, torture, Cheney, Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, Rush Limbaugh, Nixon, Joe McCarthy, Ronald Reagan. All that stuff. And electing Bush. And then—astoundingly, mindblowingly, jawdroppingly—re–electing Bush. When you guys suck, you really suck.
Then there’s the racism thing. A lot of us grew up with TV images of cops beating civil rights demonstrators, the genocide in Vietnam, the persecution of Muhammad Ali, the murders of the black panthers, Dr. King and Malcolm X. We know that modern white America thinks its shit don’t stink, that racism is in the past and anyway, things are much worse in Europe, and that American kids are colorblind (despite the fact that they cluster in blacks–only and whites–only groups in college cafeterias).
There’s an article in the latest GQ that describes modern America as suffering from ”segregation without the racists”. Meaning, presumably, that non–white Americans choose the low–paid jobs and choose to live in the shit parts of town. Because if America isn’t profoundly racist, what other possible explanation could there be? Rightly or wrongly this is how the rest of the world sees America—as a nation utterly obsessed with race and profoundly poisoned by racism.
This is the sort of thing that makes my blood boil about this election. This was an election about America re-embracing the virtues we extol and have said we embody. About a nation that had lost its way reclaiming the high road. This was not an election about proving something to the rest of the world about our feelings on race, the electoral equivalent of saying "hey, I'm not racist, I've got a black friend!" Meet Mr. Obama: our black friend. I mean, Mr. Wells, Vietnam? Civil rights demonstrators? 1968 called and wants its article back. You don't have something a tad more recent you'd like to discuss?
Further, the slightly-to-extremely pedantic Mr. Wells is from the UK (I presume), and perhaps he should get down off his soapbox, walk home from Speaker's Corner and do a little digging into his nation's own sordid history of racism and xenophobia - a condition, I might add, that persists to this day. I invite Mr. Wells to investigate how England treated its colonial holdings, including the appalling treatment of India that lasted well into the 20th century. But, undaunted, Mr. Wells continues:
The rest of the world looks at a US school system that is more segregated now than it was before the start of the civil rights movement. They look at the major US cities, most of which—like most of Philadelphia—are segregated with a totality that would bring joy to the architects of apartheid South Africa. And then we read articles in USAian magazines and newspapers that talk of racism in the past tense. And we scratch our heads in wonder.
In the run–up to this election, some Eastern Europeans I spoke to were absolutely certain that the USA is so racist that Obama will simply not be allowed to be president. Others—mostly Western Europeans—have been almost giddy with excitement. But it’s an excitement tempered with disbelief. Is the America of Jim Crow, the KKK, Birth of a Nation, ghettos, race riots, lynchings and beatings—where, in vast swathes of the country, blacks and whites are expected to vote for different parties, as if they were entirely separate and distinct tribes—did this America really elect Barack Obama?
Sigh. Mr. Wells, have you ever been to your beloved London? Would you describe it as living in racial harmony, or starkly polarized, with Middle Eastern and Indian citizens living virtually isolated north of the Marble Arch - an area where people I know who live in London refuse to go after the sun sets. Nobody has it perfectly yet, Mr. Wells. And Eastern Europeans? I mean, you guys really want to open your collective mouths about racism and people not being "allowed" to do this, that or the other? Don't make me say it. Don't make me. Wasn't it the anniversary of Kristallnacht the other night - dammit, I couldn't help myself.
Fact of the matter is that every country on this planet has problems with either a religious, ethnic or cultural minority. Show me one that does not. Show me a country where the many have not ever oppressed the few. You cannot. Countries are as good as their citizens, and citizens are people. Imperfect, fearful, flawed people. The best you can hope for is that countries will endeavor to become more enlightened and tolerant as their citizens move in that direction. Some move faster. Some move more slowly. But for the rest of the world, where there is still ethnic cleansing and genocide, if not now then within a generation in the past, to cast a skeptical and overly critical eye in OUR direction is a bit offensive. If you wish to take us to task for the past eight years, by all means, let's talk. But when you take this election and turn it into a referendum on the history of this nation, you're treading on thin ice. A lot of nations have done a lot of bad things. Let's not start pointing fingers or some of you may not like where things end up.
Mr. Wells does finish his backhanded compliment on a high note:
...we think that if America can elect a black president then anything is possible. It might even be that all the talk we hear coming out of American mouths about truth and justice and liberty and common human decency might actually be matched by American actions. By electing Obama you have proved yourselves greater, wiser, nicer and more truly American than we thought you possibly could be. And if you can do something this amazing, maybe the rest of the world can shake of its own horrible racist past too. You give us hope, America. You rejected the party of fear, racism and greed, and you elected the candidate who spoke to the best in you. And that action speaks to the best in all of us. All six billion of us. This morning, America, you really are as great as you think you are. (Don’t let it go to your head.)
Sigh. Having a black president does not, in and of itself, solve anything, with the exception of it making it impossible for that president to be George Bush. It does not make us wiser, better or more decent. It just means we voted for (in my opinion) the better man for the job without letting his race be a deciding issue for white voters. This is the danger in Obama's victory - the world has painted us with too negative a brush up to now, and now whipsaws the other way, and places far too great a weight on one act. The world equates all Republicans as racist fear-mongers and all people who voted for Obama as enlightened. Neither is true and to think so is dangerously simple-minded.
America is a complicated country - I would argue the most complex nation ever in the history of man. It cannot be painted one thing or another thing because it is always so very many things at once. To have painted us as a culture bubbling over with racism at all times and in all places - but that this suddenly and joyously ended on last Tuesday - is mind-numbingly simplistic. I hope for the sake of the rest of the world, they judge both our successes and failures on a more realistic scale going forward.
I want to point out one example here, which is an article written by Steven Wells, contributor to both the UK Guardian and also Philadelphia Weekly here in the States. The article can be found here and I will just address some of the points made.
Mr. Wells writes this open letter to America ostensibly as a congratulations, but it veers hard right into a rebuke of America's history virtually in its totality. That is the danger of Senator Obama's election - it does not change history, but what it does do is give us a clearer picture of how some people have seen America because now they've decided to tell us how they "really felt" about us, seeing as how as of last Tuesday we moved past our racist history. And that is the other danger - that the world has read far too much into this result.
In this article, Mr. Wells congratulates us for the election result - and lots of other things about America that he finds to be "really cool" but admonishes us for some of the things we've done... and then just keeps on going:
But there’s the other stuff.
You know, overthrowing democratically elected governments, supporting fascists, supporting the Khmer Rouge, supporting Islamic fundamentalists, torture, Cheney, Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, Rush Limbaugh, Nixon, Joe McCarthy, Ronald Reagan. All that stuff. And electing Bush. And then—astoundingly, mindblowingly, jawdroppingly—re–electing Bush. When you guys suck, you really suck.
Then there’s the racism thing. A lot of us grew up with TV images of cops beating civil rights demonstrators, the genocide in Vietnam, the persecution of Muhammad Ali, the murders of the black panthers, Dr. King and Malcolm X. We know that modern white America thinks its shit don’t stink, that racism is in the past and anyway, things are much worse in Europe, and that American kids are colorblind (despite the fact that they cluster in blacks–only and whites–only groups in college cafeterias).
There’s an article in the latest GQ that describes modern America as suffering from ”segregation without the racists”. Meaning, presumably, that non–white Americans choose the low–paid jobs and choose to live in the shit parts of town. Because if America isn’t profoundly racist, what other possible explanation could there be? Rightly or wrongly this is how the rest of the world sees America—as a nation utterly obsessed with race and profoundly poisoned by racism.
This is the sort of thing that makes my blood boil about this election. This was an election about America re-embracing the virtues we extol and have said we embody. About a nation that had lost its way reclaiming the high road. This was not an election about proving something to the rest of the world about our feelings on race, the electoral equivalent of saying "hey, I'm not racist, I've got a black friend!" Meet Mr. Obama: our black friend. I mean, Mr. Wells, Vietnam? Civil rights demonstrators? 1968 called and wants its article back. You don't have something a tad more recent you'd like to discuss?
Further, the slightly-to-extremely pedantic Mr. Wells is from the UK (I presume), and perhaps he should get down off his soapbox, walk home from Speaker's Corner and do a little digging into his nation's own sordid history of racism and xenophobia - a condition, I might add, that persists to this day. I invite Mr. Wells to investigate how England treated its colonial holdings, including the appalling treatment of India that lasted well into the 20th century. But, undaunted, Mr. Wells continues:
The rest of the world looks at a US school system that is more segregated now than it was before the start of the civil rights movement. They look at the major US cities, most of which—like most of Philadelphia—are segregated with a totality that would bring joy to the architects of apartheid South Africa. And then we read articles in USAian magazines and newspapers that talk of racism in the past tense. And we scratch our heads in wonder.
In the run–up to this election, some Eastern Europeans I spoke to were absolutely certain that the USA is so racist that Obama will simply not be allowed to be president. Others—mostly Western Europeans—have been almost giddy with excitement. But it’s an excitement tempered with disbelief. Is the America of Jim Crow, the KKK, Birth of a Nation, ghettos, race riots, lynchings and beatings—where, in vast swathes of the country, blacks and whites are expected to vote for different parties, as if they were entirely separate and distinct tribes—did this America really elect Barack Obama?
Sigh. Mr. Wells, have you ever been to your beloved London? Would you describe it as living in racial harmony, or starkly polarized, with Middle Eastern and Indian citizens living virtually isolated north of the Marble Arch - an area where people I know who live in London refuse to go after the sun sets. Nobody has it perfectly yet, Mr. Wells. And Eastern Europeans? I mean, you guys really want to open your collective mouths about racism and people not being "allowed" to do this, that or the other? Don't make me say it. Don't make me. Wasn't it the anniversary of Kristallnacht the other night - dammit, I couldn't help myself.
Fact of the matter is that every country on this planet has problems with either a religious, ethnic or cultural minority. Show me one that does not. Show me a country where the many have not ever oppressed the few. You cannot. Countries are as good as their citizens, and citizens are people. Imperfect, fearful, flawed people. The best you can hope for is that countries will endeavor to become more enlightened and tolerant as their citizens move in that direction. Some move faster. Some move more slowly. But for the rest of the world, where there is still ethnic cleansing and genocide, if not now then within a generation in the past, to cast a skeptical and overly critical eye in OUR direction is a bit offensive. If you wish to take us to task for the past eight years, by all means, let's talk. But when you take this election and turn it into a referendum on the history of this nation, you're treading on thin ice. A lot of nations have done a lot of bad things. Let's not start pointing fingers or some of you may not like where things end up.
Mr. Wells does finish his backhanded compliment on a high note:
...we think that if America can elect a black president then anything is possible. It might even be that all the talk we hear coming out of American mouths about truth and justice and liberty and common human decency might actually be matched by American actions. By electing Obama you have proved yourselves greater, wiser, nicer and more truly American than we thought you possibly could be. And if you can do something this amazing, maybe the rest of the world can shake of its own horrible racist past too. You give us hope, America. You rejected the party of fear, racism and greed, and you elected the candidate who spoke to the best in you. And that action speaks to the best in all of us. All six billion of us. This morning, America, you really are as great as you think you are. (Don’t let it go to your head.)
Sigh. Having a black president does not, in and of itself, solve anything, with the exception of it making it impossible for that president to be George Bush. It does not make us wiser, better or more decent. It just means we voted for (in my opinion) the better man for the job without letting his race be a deciding issue for white voters. This is the danger in Obama's victory - the world has painted us with too negative a brush up to now, and now whipsaws the other way, and places far too great a weight on one act. The world equates all Republicans as racist fear-mongers and all people who voted for Obama as enlightened. Neither is true and to think so is dangerously simple-minded.
America is a complicated country - I would argue the most complex nation ever in the history of man. It cannot be painted one thing or another thing because it is always so very many things at once. To have painted us as a culture bubbling over with racism at all times and in all places - but that this suddenly and joyously ended on last Tuesday - is mind-numbingly simplistic. I hope for the sake of the rest of the world, they judge both our successes and failures on a more realistic scale going forward.
.jpg)
I Want Tong Po . . . GIVE ME TONG PO!!!!
The muscles from Brussels is back in the eponymous, yet abbreviated, yet f**king awesomely titled "JCVD." The "White Warrior" plays a 47-year-old, downtrodden, old before his time, forgotten action star - pretty much a biopic.
It's essentially two Van Dammes for the price of single admission: Van Damme playing Van Damme. I'd give this bound to be cult classic sleeper the tag line "one packs a punch, the other packs a piece - together they deliver!" if it wasn't already taken by his 1991 tour de force "Double Impact."
Can a buddy cop flick starring JCVD and a fat before his time Steven Seagal be long off now? NPH can play the mastermind villan. I demand this go into pre-production yesterday!
Oh, and Obama visits the White House today as a side note. Not that anyone cares since JCVD is forced to fight again because Xian Chow just told the bar patrons that their respective mothers "had sex with mules!"
Sunday, November 9, 2008
The Executive Balm
President-Elect Obama will apply his politically mandated salve on the open wounds from certain Bush administration policies using retaliatory executive orders:
Barack Obama will assume the U.S. presidency with "a real mandate for change," and likely will use his executive powers to make quick changes, perhaps reversing Bush administration policies on stem cell research and oil exploration.
John Podesta, who's handling Obama's preparations to take over in the White House on Jan. 20, said on Sunday that Obama was reviewing President George W. Bush's executive orders on those and other issues as he prepares to put his own stamp on policy after eight years of Republican rule.
Though sheer speculation at this point, one Bush administration executive order seemingly ripe for reversal is Executive Order 13435. Signed on June 20, 2007, EO 13435 supports alternative means of creating new lines of stem cells, but at the expense of readily available cell lines yielding the most promising medical research. As head of Obama's transition team, Podesta concedes as much in an interview with Fox News: "I think across the board, on stem cell research, on a number of areas, you see the Bush administration, even today, moving aggressively to do things that I think are probably not in the interest of the country."
President Bush issued a total of 262 executive orders during his two terms and still counting. Some of them were doozies.
Barack Obama will assume the U.S. presidency with "a real mandate for change," and likely will use his executive powers to make quick changes, perhaps reversing Bush administration policies on stem cell research and oil exploration.
John Podesta, who's handling Obama's preparations to take over in the White House on Jan. 20, said on Sunday that Obama was reviewing President George W. Bush's executive orders on those and other issues as he prepares to put his own stamp on policy after eight years of Republican rule.
Though sheer speculation at this point, one Bush administration executive order seemingly ripe for reversal is Executive Order 13435. Signed on June 20, 2007, EO 13435 supports alternative means of creating new lines of stem cells, but at the expense of readily available cell lines yielding the most promising medical research. As head of Obama's transition team, Podesta concedes as much in an interview with Fox News: "I think across the board, on stem cell research, on a number of areas, you see the Bush administration, even today, moving aggressively to do things that I think are probably not in the interest of the country."
President Bush issued a total of 262 executive orders during his two terms and still counting. Some of them were doozies.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
