Thursday, November 25, 2004
Saturday, November 06, 2004
The L Word
Babe the Blue Ox here.
Paul has not left the cabin in four days, working his way through a whole standard pallet of Kentucky whiskey. Every few minutes, I hear the clank of another empty flying out the window onto a pile that is now bigger than one of my cow-pies.
Okay, while Paul is out of it for a while, here's the deal. Yes, the election was stolen. But it was stolen fair and square. You can't cheat an honest man, and who lets an election get stolen? A wussy does, is what the Babe has to say about that. John Kerry, Al Gore, Michael Dukakis, Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, Ed Muskie, what do they all have in common? Um, they're wusses? Uh huh.
The Democrats have one big problem. The word Conservative is just a whole lot of a better word than the word Liberal. Conservative is what you want your football team to be in the Superbowl--that is, unless they're Losing in the 3rd quarter, or unless they are one of those one-hit-wonder teams that rely on a flashy offense of the kind that never win Superbowls. Conservative is what you want to be with your money. Conservative is what you want to be with your "powers" and your "energies" for "when it really matters." Conservative is what you want to be as a Liberal with one of your key concerns, i.e. the environment, because you are a Conservationist.
Liberal is not what you want anybody to be with your daughter. When you say that somebody uses a word, or a spice, or their drinking, or anything else "Liberally," you're making fun of 'em. Somebody who is Liberal with his money is good to have as a friend, but is definitely not someone whose business you would invest in.
The British Liberal Party of 200 years ago began as a radical opposition movement against the old entrenched powers. Back then the alarming connotations of Liberality as a policy of state ("Sure take whatever you want. I'm feelin' loose."), were not a problem because they were meant as a provocation. These were the guys who wanted to break up the old system of rigid state control, whether the Tory or Whig version. The Liberal idea was freedom, that is to stop fighting the forces of change, let it loose with free trade, free religious expression, and expansion of the voting franchise.
The Liberals went from radicalism to decades of political domination at the very height of British glory and empire. They held on to power so long because the crazy Liberal idea worked just as they thought it would: it created wealth without completely destroying society. In their early years of rule they could rely on the nearly unanimous support of the newly emerging class of people who were the direct beneficiaries of this wealth, that is everybody who made real money off of the industrial revolution, from capitalists to engineers to merchants to ad-men.
It's significant that the Liberals hit the rocks when they tried to expand their set of Enlightenment ideals from the individual-oriented principles of free trade and free expression to the universalist principles of national self-determination and protection of human welfare. Half of their base of support deserted them when it came to Home Rule for Ireland and poor-relief at home. The Liberal, or anti-Tory, cause was lost until the emergence of the Industrial Worker power base and the Labour Party. It's significant also that while Whigs yielded to Liberals and Liberals to Labour, a Tory remained a Tory. The impulse to say no to change, to try to turn back time, is a basic and primitive impulse that needs no name change or even any explanation.
Things went a little differently in the U.S. For one thing, before the Liberal party even existed in England, the U.S. was established with a Constitution and Bill of Rights that made it the most Liberal nation that had ever existed. And so our political struggles broke out along different lines, with a series of changing sets of party oppositions that were aligned not so much to the classic Liberal/Conservative opposition as to regional or class conflicts, such as between the South and North or between industrial and agricultural regions.
The result is a very twisted and complex genealogy of U.S. political parties. For example, the Democratic party was originally founded on states' rights and opposition to taxes, causes eventually taken up by Republicans just as they took up the principle of Racism when the Democrats abandoned it. Meanwhile, the Republican Party of Lincoln was in some respects the counterpart of the Liberals in England, and remained so until Teddy Roosevelt defected from the party in 1912.
The Liberal, progressive, or anti-conservative cause has shifted its objectives over time. Liberalism meant free-trade in early 19th century England when the existing autocracy needed to be broken to permit industry to develop, but it meant trust-busting around the turn of the century when industrial wealth had gained too much power. Liberalism at first ignored the worker, but then took up his cause after it won him the franchise and after public education and new media technologies made it possible for the masses to participate in politics. Idealistic humanitarian, environmental, and civil rights issues have always been a part of Liberalism, but have always been contentious, having periodically torn its voting bases to shreds since the Liberals fell into decline in England some 120 years ago.
To be a Liberal means to have an answer to the complaint that "things were better off the way they used to be." The problem is nobody really believes this; everybody actually believes on an emotional level that things were better before. The enormous advantage, on the other hand, is that thing are going to change whether or not we want them to, and thus all Conservatives will always be wrong. And so far, nostalgia aside, all of this change, at least in America, has been for the better. The key is to realize what needs to happen and to make it happen, like, for example, Lincoln, both Roosevelts, and Johnson did.
Paul has not left the cabin in four days, working his way through a whole standard pallet of Kentucky whiskey. Every few minutes, I hear the clank of another empty flying out the window onto a pile that is now bigger than one of my cow-pies.
Okay, while Paul is out of it for a while, here's the deal. Yes, the election was stolen. But it was stolen fair and square. You can't cheat an honest man, and who lets an election get stolen? A wussy does, is what the Babe has to say about that. John Kerry, Al Gore, Michael Dukakis, Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, Ed Muskie, what do they all have in common? Um, they're wusses? Uh huh.
The Democrats have one big problem. The word Conservative is just a whole lot of a better word than the word Liberal. Conservative is what you want your football team to be in the Superbowl--that is, unless they're Losing in the 3rd quarter, or unless they are one of those one-hit-wonder teams that rely on a flashy offense of the kind that never win Superbowls. Conservative is what you want to be with your money. Conservative is what you want to be with your "powers" and your "energies" for "when it really matters." Conservative is what you want to be as a Liberal with one of your key concerns, i.e. the environment, because you are a Conservationist.
Liberal is not what you want anybody to be with your daughter. When you say that somebody uses a word, or a spice, or their drinking, or anything else "Liberally," you're making fun of 'em. Somebody who is Liberal with his money is good to have as a friend, but is definitely not someone whose business you would invest in.
The British Liberal Party of 200 years ago began as a radical opposition movement against the old entrenched powers. Back then the alarming connotations of Liberality as a policy of state ("Sure take whatever you want. I'm feelin' loose."), were not a problem because they were meant as a provocation. These were the guys who wanted to break up the old system of rigid state control, whether the Tory or Whig version. The Liberal idea was freedom, that is to stop fighting the forces of change, let it loose with free trade, free religious expression, and expansion of the voting franchise.
The Liberals went from radicalism to decades of political domination at the very height of British glory and empire. They held on to power so long because the crazy Liberal idea worked just as they thought it would: it created wealth without completely destroying society. In their early years of rule they could rely on the nearly unanimous support of the newly emerging class of people who were the direct beneficiaries of this wealth, that is everybody who made real money off of the industrial revolution, from capitalists to engineers to merchants to ad-men.
It's significant that the Liberals hit the rocks when they tried to expand their set of Enlightenment ideals from the individual-oriented principles of free trade and free expression to the universalist principles of national self-determination and protection of human welfare. Half of their base of support deserted them when it came to Home Rule for Ireland and poor-relief at home. The Liberal, or anti-Tory, cause was lost until the emergence of the Industrial Worker power base and the Labour Party. It's significant also that while Whigs yielded to Liberals and Liberals to Labour, a Tory remained a Tory. The impulse to say no to change, to try to turn back time, is a basic and primitive impulse that needs no name change or even any explanation.
Things went a little differently in the U.S. For one thing, before the Liberal party even existed in England, the U.S. was established with a Constitution and Bill of Rights that made it the most Liberal nation that had ever existed. And so our political struggles broke out along different lines, with a series of changing sets of party oppositions that were aligned not so much to the classic Liberal/Conservative opposition as to regional or class conflicts, such as between the South and North or between industrial and agricultural regions.
The result is a very twisted and complex genealogy of U.S. political parties. For example, the Democratic party was originally founded on states' rights and opposition to taxes, causes eventually taken up by Republicans just as they took up the principle of Racism when the Democrats abandoned it. Meanwhile, the Republican Party of Lincoln was in some respects the counterpart of the Liberals in England, and remained so until Teddy Roosevelt defected from the party in 1912.
The Liberal, progressive, or anti-conservative cause has shifted its objectives over time. Liberalism meant free-trade in early 19th century England when the existing autocracy needed to be broken to permit industry to develop, but it meant trust-busting around the turn of the century when industrial wealth had gained too much power. Liberalism at first ignored the worker, but then took up his cause after it won him the franchise and after public education and new media technologies made it possible for the masses to participate in politics. Idealistic humanitarian, environmental, and civil rights issues have always been a part of Liberalism, but have always been contentious, having periodically torn its voting bases to shreds since the Liberals fell into decline in England some 120 years ago.
To be a Liberal means to have an answer to the complaint that "things were better off the way they used to be." The problem is nobody really believes this; everybody actually believes on an emotional level that things were better before. The enormous advantage, on the other hand, is that thing are going to change whether or not we want them to, and thus all Conservatives will always be wrong. And so far, nostalgia aside, all of this change, at least in America, has been for the better. The key is to realize what needs to happen and to make it happen, like, for example, Lincoln, both Roosevelts, and Johnson did.
Thursday, October 21, 2004
BOO!
Two headlines from yesterday's papers:
"Bush Campaigns With Brother, Accuses Kerry Of Using Scare Tactics"
(The Frontrunner, 10-20-04)
"Cheney, Invoking Specter of a Nuclear Attack, Questions Kerry's Strength"
(NYTimes 10-20-04)
"Bush Campaigns With Brother, Accuses Kerry Of Using Scare Tactics"
(The Frontrunner, 10-20-04)
"Cheney, Invoking Specter of a Nuclear Attack, Questions Kerry's Strength"
(NYTimes 10-20-04)
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Yankee Doodle Mouths Off
Hey Sports Fans, Yankee Doodle here, close and personal friend of Uncle Sam's. Yesterday, I received a letter from the Pillsbury Dough Boy asking:
Do you have any info on why I should vote Kerry and not Bush?
Honestly, I don't like either, but I would hope to have some real facts to work with. Unfortunately, the American Political landscape is full of lies and deceit. Especially the 2000 election bullshit in Florida and the Iraq War. That is why I won't vote for Bush, but Kerry really isn't a good replacement. What do I do?
~ PDB
Dear PDB,
Well, I completely agree. However, always remember that you are voting for one of two "behind the scenes" World Order (WO) agendas. And from where I sit as our nation's _other_ red, white and blue superstar, I would rather have the Kerry World Order faction in place than the Bush one. The Bush WO faction is about Oil, Arms, Pharmaceuticals (big profits from the disease model of health care) and other Drug Running (propping up Wall Street - i.e. FARC and poppy's cabal), and basically makes its power from creating war (including the draft BTW).
Remember Bush's father's famous one-liner in 1990 that nobody but the insiders understood - eternal war for eternal peace? Or Bush Jr.'s "I just know how the world works," line the other night? Kerry's faction is more aligned around technology. While they are hell-bent on outer technology to disempower the masses, at least it is not as environmentally insane as the Bush WO approach. And when democrats are in the White House, it's just a helluva lot easier to make your way through the "system," to deal with bureaucracy. Plus, it gives us all a better opportunity to wake up to our own INNER power. At least with Kerry, I have a better shot of hearing from my inner power than from the Bush faction, with the overload of everyone running scared from some terrorist boogeyman.
Many of my international colleagues believe that the Bushco WO faction was behind 9/11 in order to ignite and further their agenda. My belief, along with Uncle Sam, is that Bush looked the other way in hopes that 9/11 would be the break his faction needed. Indeed, if you look at it big picture, 9/11 shifted the economy from technology as we knew it (circa 1990's) back to the old guard military industrial companies, such as Lockheed, Halliburton, etc. Basically, you have two bonesmen representing the two WO factions, so it is a choice of how you want your Lords and Masters to rule over you.
The third choice is to buy a small island in the South Pacific, declare it Sovereign, pitch a tent and move there. The Powers That Be have pretty much locked up the rest of the planet at this point.
Blessings,
Yankee Doodle
Do you have any info on why I should vote Kerry and not Bush?
Honestly, I don't like either, but I would hope to have some real facts to work with. Unfortunately, the American Political landscape is full of lies and deceit. Especially the 2000 election bullshit in Florida and the Iraq War. That is why I won't vote for Bush, but Kerry really isn't a good replacement. What do I do?
~ PDB
Dear PDB,
Well, I completely agree. However, always remember that you are voting for one of two "behind the scenes" World Order (WO) agendas. And from where I sit as our nation's _other_ red, white and blue superstar, I would rather have the Kerry World Order faction in place than the Bush one. The Bush WO faction is about Oil, Arms, Pharmaceuticals (big profits from the disease model of health care) and other Drug Running (propping up Wall Street - i.e. FARC and poppy's cabal), and basically makes its power from creating war (including the draft BTW).
Remember Bush's father's famous one-liner in 1990 that nobody but the insiders understood - eternal war for eternal peace? Or Bush Jr.'s "I just know how the world works," line the other night? Kerry's faction is more aligned around technology. While they are hell-bent on outer technology to disempower the masses, at least it is not as environmentally insane as the Bush WO approach. And when democrats are in the White House, it's just a helluva lot easier to make your way through the "system," to deal with bureaucracy. Plus, it gives us all a better opportunity to wake up to our own INNER power. At least with Kerry, I have a better shot of hearing from my inner power than from the Bush faction, with the overload of everyone running scared from some terrorist boogeyman.
Many of my international colleagues believe that the Bushco WO faction was behind 9/11 in order to ignite and further their agenda. My belief, along with Uncle Sam, is that Bush looked the other way in hopes that 9/11 would be the break his faction needed. Indeed, if you look at it big picture, 9/11 shifted the economy from technology as we knew it (circa 1990's) back to the old guard military industrial companies, such as Lockheed, Halliburton, etc. Basically, you have two bonesmen representing the two WO factions, so it is a choice of how you want your Lords and Masters to rule over you.
The third choice is to buy a small island in the South Pacific, declare it Sovereign, pitch a tent and move there. The Powers That Be have pretty much locked up the rest of the planet at this point.
Blessings,
Yankee Doodle
Two Weeks to Election Day
If Bush wins (and I do mean "if") the key reason will be that Americans are afraid of changing pale horses of death in mid-nightmare. So Kerry needs to shout: "Wake Up!" And he needs to do so in so many different ways that somehow enough people hear it and have time to rise from their brainwashed slumber by November 2. Kerry needs to convey this vibe in all his answers, a sense of almost disbelief at what's going on (laughing and shaking his head in mock shock at the latest Bush attack). And mainly, he needs to be having fun. In every sound byte, we need to see that fun is still possible, that levity and humor can still have a place in the West Wing. Kerry can win if he lifts us out of the pall of terror.
And, I guess it shouldn't be too surprising that current polls are showing that, post-debate, Kerry isn't getting the bounce that he needs. What Kerry needs is to make his own bounce. He needs five (5) big messages that he just pounds on, from here to the election. When you go to www.johnkerry.com, there should be five compelling graphics with these themes, and when you click on them, a one minute video of Kerry talking his core position on the theme comes up, underneath of which there are more choices: Ask a Question Read Policy Paper See what America Thinks See more Video.
Herewith the five themes:
1) Right war or wrong war, we're losing the war...
Kerry explains that we need to recast to win, and that he has the credibility to start fresh, and the experience to run the new war. He must emphasize that he's not going to bail on the war on terror, and that he can be just as tough and vigilant as W.
2) We need allies to win the war; I can get 'em.
Kerry needs to remind us that hitting the reset button buys the US a lot. What might our allies say and do if the entire country throws Bush out. Kerry can reframe the situation. He can say: "I have wiggle room Bush has burnt up." He can use his flip-flopper powers for good! If he is feeling particularly bold, he can even say that he will open up a second "peace" front, because he knows that war is not the only answer.
3) Bush is paid for by the rich and is not your friend. He lied to you and steals from you.
Nobody really cares about this one, but at least one of the five messages has got to say it.
4) I love America and always have - my history proves it.
We need constant, heart-rending rhetoric from Kerry about how "really loving America" means criticizing and helping to fix it. How America is always unfinished, but unless we keep improving it we stagnate. All that classic comic-book rhetoric: we need it now!
5) You can't privatize everything and tax nothing.
Back to the economy, he can just point out again and again that Bush is bankrupting the country, losing us jobs, giving it all to the rich, and has no plan to reverse the trend.
But at the end of the day, Kerry has to show that he is a tough-minded, military-minded, no-nonsense true believe who will not lose control if we hand him the reins. That's the majority of it.
And, I guess it shouldn't be too surprising that current polls are showing that, post-debate, Kerry isn't getting the bounce that he needs. What Kerry needs is to make his own bounce. He needs five (5) big messages that he just pounds on, from here to the election. When you go to www.johnkerry.com, there should be five compelling graphics with these themes, and when you click on them, a one minute video of Kerry talking his core position on the theme comes up, underneath of which there are more choices: Ask a Question Read Policy Paper See what America Thinks See more Video.
Herewith the five themes:
1) Right war or wrong war, we're losing the war...
Kerry explains that we need to recast to win, and that he has the credibility to start fresh, and the experience to run the new war. He must emphasize that he's not going to bail on the war on terror, and that he can be just as tough and vigilant as W.
2) We need allies to win the war; I can get 'em.
Kerry needs to remind us that hitting the reset button buys the US a lot. What might our allies say and do if the entire country throws Bush out. Kerry can reframe the situation. He can say: "I have wiggle room Bush has burnt up." He can use his flip-flopper powers for good! If he is feeling particularly bold, he can even say that he will open up a second "peace" front, because he knows that war is not the only answer.
3) Bush is paid for by the rich and is not your friend. He lied to you and steals from you.
Nobody really cares about this one, but at least one of the five messages has got to say it.
4) I love America and always have - my history proves it.
We need constant, heart-rending rhetoric from Kerry about how "really loving America" means criticizing and helping to fix it. How America is always unfinished, but unless we keep improving it we stagnate. All that classic comic-book rhetoric: we need it now!
5) You can't privatize everything and tax nothing.
Back to the economy, he can just point out again and again that Bush is bankrupting the country, losing us jobs, giving it all to the rich, and has no plan to reverse the trend.
But at the end of the day, Kerry has to show that he is a tough-minded, military-minded, no-nonsense true believe who will not lose control if we hand him the reins. That's the majority of it.
Monday, October 18, 2004
Say You're Sorry
It takes a big man to say he's sorry. And given how exploitable Bush's inability to apologize for anything is, Kerry's gaffe identifying Mary Cheney as someone who is likely biologically gay could have been his opportunity to lead by example and shame the Bushies.
Mike McCurry, Clinton's former Press Secretary, who recently started helping run the Kerry campaign, and who has political instincts like Vince Lombardi had sports instincts, knew right away what to do: "Say you're sorry," he told Kerry. Show what a real man does. Take the issue away from them. Unfortunately, Mary Beth and the rest demurred, and so the Republicans managed to get their post-debate distraction issue from an unlikely place: righteous indignation at insulting a person of the gay persuasion. You can't say these guys don't appreciate irony.
Kerry could have said: "If I hurt Mary Cheney's feelings, I'm sorry." He could have continued: "Believe me, I have no desire to discuss people's sexual orientation on TV. But this would not even be an issue if the Republicans weren't trying to legislate morality. I'm only bringing it up because there is a little hypocrisy on their side. And they themselves made an issue of the Vice President's daughter. But sometimes people get used in this process in a way that I don't believe in, and I inadvertently participated in that the other night. I'm sorry. Any other questions."
Think of what the media spin would have been: Is he a woosie for saying he's sorry? The answer would have ended up being, no, he's the kind of role model I want in the Oval Office. How many parents teach their children that character is about owning your mistakes?
Time and time again, history shows us that if a politician steps up to the plate and just apologizes, the public forgives him. It even worked for Jimmy Swaggart, and it worked for Clinton the first time. And when Clinton didn't do it the second time, it almost sunk him. McCurry saw this carnage first hand, and the Kerry team should have listened to him.
Mike McCurry, Clinton's former Press Secretary, who recently started helping run the Kerry campaign, and who has political instincts like Vince Lombardi had sports instincts, knew right away what to do: "Say you're sorry," he told Kerry. Show what a real man does. Take the issue away from them. Unfortunately, Mary Beth and the rest demurred, and so the Republicans managed to get their post-debate distraction issue from an unlikely place: righteous indignation at insulting a person of the gay persuasion. You can't say these guys don't appreciate irony.
Kerry could have said: "If I hurt Mary Cheney's feelings, I'm sorry." He could have continued: "Believe me, I have no desire to discuss people's sexual orientation on TV. But this would not even be an issue if the Republicans weren't trying to legislate morality. I'm only bringing it up because there is a little hypocrisy on their side. And they themselves made an issue of the Vice President's daughter. But sometimes people get used in this process in a way that I don't believe in, and I inadvertently participated in that the other night. I'm sorry. Any other questions."
Think of what the media spin would have been: Is he a woosie for saying he's sorry? The answer would have ended up being, no, he's the kind of role model I want in the Oval Office. How many parents teach their children that character is about owning your mistakes?
Time and time again, history shows us that if a politician steps up to the plate and just apologizes, the public forgives him. It even worked for Jimmy Swaggart, and it worked for Clinton the first time. And when Clinton didn't do it the second time, it almost sunk him. McCurry saw this carnage first hand, and the Kerry team should have listened to him.
Thursday, October 14, 2004
Where We're At
Up to the minute electoral vote count:
http://www.electoral-vote.com/
Up to the minute summary of the latest polls:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/bush_vs_kerry.html
http://www.electoral-vote.com/
Up to the minute summary of the latest polls:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/bush_vs_kerry.html
Funky Monkey
Three swings – three good hits. No home runs, but you can win the game by hitting singles.
I thought Kerry looked damn good. I am actually starting to like the guy. I was going to hold my nose and vote for him. Now I’m just going to vote for him.
I see that he managed to reduce the height and solidity of his hair somehow.
As for the other guy. I think he took too much of whatever he's on these days. Or maybe somebody finally got a signal jammer into the building.
The President is a grinning baboon.
Or maybe, a raging sock puppet foaming at the mouth.
Or maybe, a cheap malicious thug.
Or maybe he is completely insane.
But unless Kerry converts these subtle victories into some sort of "buzz," he will still lose. I just visited the Kerry Web site, and it's kind of lame. Certainly by the next day after the debate, you want the clip where Bush says he's not concerned about Osama bin Laden juxtaposed with the clip where Bush says he never said that. You want the “hard work” song that’s circulating on line. In the classic American tradition, you want to make the President look like the simian sock puppet he basically is.
The goal now is to melt it all down into a handful of nuggets that totally blow away the flip-flopper thing and lay out the vision in an unambiguous and big way. We need some fun stuff up there. Hell, you can even dress him up as me.
I thought Kerry looked damn good. I am actually starting to like the guy. I was going to hold my nose and vote for him. Now I’m just going to vote for him.
I see that he managed to reduce the height and solidity of his hair somehow.
As for the other guy. I think he took too much of whatever he's on these days. Or maybe somebody finally got a signal jammer into the building.
The President is a grinning baboon.
Or maybe, a raging sock puppet foaming at the mouth.
Or maybe, a cheap malicious thug.
Or maybe he is completely insane.
But unless Kerry converts these subtle victories into some sort of "buzz," he will still lose. I just visited the Kerry Web site, and it's kind of lame. Certainly by the next day after the debate, you want the clip where Bush says he's not concerned about Osama bin Laden juxtaposed with the clip where Bush says he never said that. You want the “hard work” song that’s circulating on line. In the classic American tradition, you want to make the President look like the simian sock puppet he basically is.
The goal now is to melt it all down into a handful of nuggets that totally blow away the flip-flopper thing and lay out the vision in an unambiguous and big way. We need some fun stuff up there. Hell, you can even dress him up as me.
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
The Undercard
Cheney did well, somehow managing to pass himself off a human being, which is not easy for him. Edward's hair was parted oddly, and as the debate wore on he did seem to diminish in stature. The moment of introduction was priceless, with Cheney looking deadly serious and somberly nodding as his name is mentioned, Edwards wheeling ferally to the camera and flashing a smarmy fashion-runway smile. Good lord. I hope someone tells him to stop doing that.
Both guys are good talkers, never lose the thread or wheel off into uncharted oceans of previously prepared material, unlike their better halves. It's funny how an aura of diminishment hovers over these "vice" presidential debates, no matter who the guys are--it's like a bronze medal match or a performance to an empty house, just a little sad.
Not a big fan of Edwards. The guy seems to have no moral center. He's too young, too clean, and that smile is pure used car salesman. Boy is he a southerner. He is so vulnerable to the "personal injury lawyer" attack, which rouses something primal in people for some reason, and crosses up class and party lines. He may not necessarily be shallow and opportunistic in reality but in a dirty fight, those big white teeth could get hurt.
Both guys are good talkers, never lose the thread or wheel off into uncharted oceans of previously prepared material, unlike their better halves. It's funny how an aura of diminishment hovers over these "vice" presidential debates, no matter who the guys are--it's like a bronze medal match or a performance to an empty house, just a little sad.
Not a big fan of Edwards. The guy seems to have no moral center. He's too young, too clean, and that smile is pure used car salesman. Boy is he a southerner. He is so vulnerable to the "personal injury lawyer" attack, which rouses something primal in people for some reason, and crosses up class and party lines. He may not necessarily be shallow and opportunistic in reality but in a dirty fight, those big white teeth could get hurt.
Saturday, October 02, 2004
Kerry Knocked Him Out
Last night as I was going to bed, my wife Lady Liberty said to me that I was looking good for an old man. I reminded her that Uncle Sam is like a Bible figure, and that Methuselah lived 969 years. I reckon that as a sprightly 228 year old, I still got some good years ahead of me. I felt the same looking at the guy I would like to play me in a four year TV mini-series: John Kerry. He'll have to grow the beard and grow out the hair, but if history is any guide, he won't have to dye it white when he runs for re-election in 2008.
The 27 year old John F. Kerry testifying to Congress, which C-Span has pieced together from videos and tapes (they switch to still photos of the sessions when all they have is audio -- and they edited them together quite nicely), that's the young America confronting the tyrannical king. Kerry was the kind of guy who threw himself into the war, and lots of historical and otherwise figures have done that. But what makes him American is that he then threw himself into his reaction to the war. And after all the dust settled, John F. Kerry, our Democratic candidate for President, emerged as our country's most notable (and arguably most famous, along with possibly Ron Kovic) and emblematic Vietnam veteran -- the veteran that returned home to speak out against the war.
When he came back and spoke publicly for the first time about the crazy world of "the 'Nam" as it was known to the men who served there, the insane world of mayhem that Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket and before that Deer Hunter and Coming Home portrayed, he was the first. People don't realize it, but Kerry's testimony opened the way for that mythology to enter the American psyche. He really has been a hero, twice. Take a look at the testimony he gave in 1971. http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/audio/kerry3_0001.wmv. You will see a devoutly patriotic guy, who clearly has deep convictions and beliefs, try to bring home the truth, and speak that truth to power about things he sees as Un-American. When Jon Voight is talking to that high school in Coming Home, that's straight John Kerry.
But he was 27, and testifying before congress was about all he could do. So he went to work from there, under the principle that the best inspiration is not only great leaders, but sometimes inept leaders. It is especially American to draw inspiration from seeing that somebody in charge is squandering opportunities. The legacy of our unique revolutionary history is the idea that stupidity is the mother of all political impulse. It makes you want to lead because you can do it better.
Now he's 60, and in one of the most Biblically inspired events in American history, John Kerry is able to step back into the ghost of his 27-year-old self, and inherit the same kind of war all over again. Kerry can say in the same way, with the same orientation, that this war is a mistake, and that we need to get out of it somehow. Hopefully victoriously, but without illusions about what we're up against, America will avoid a foreign entanglement of Washingtonian proportions. And if Kerry can inhabit that ghost, as I began to see him do the other night, it could be positively Lincolnesque. I felt the beginnings of a Kerry policy the other night, tinged with nuances of: "With malice toward none; with charity for all..." Last night what I heard from John Kerry was: I want to be your president and I'm already acting like I am him.
Kerry is slowly saying it: "Sorry folks, but this _is_ Vietnam." Bush's black and white vision is crumbling as Kerry makes it clear that it is about gray areas if we're to get out alive. It's about reaching out to the Muslim world to create non-violent channels of communication. It's about solving this problem. Of course, that means it's about stating this problem first, which neither candidate has done in any meaningful way.
When Putin said: "You want me to negotiate with bastards that kill children!" I thought: "Yes, if those same bastards have potential guns to the heads of more children." We're in a hostage situation, and we have to agree that the first step is to do whatever it takes to talk those nut cases off the ledge. The mistake we're making is not realizing that _pushing_ them off the ledge only encourages more people to imitate them and climb to the ledge themselves.
So long as the core of our response to attacks from radical Islam is KILL THEM, and for this of course I fault Kerry almost as much as Bush, we are feeding the core value of murder as an OK way to deal with problems of inequality. But in a world where murder is used as a political weapon this is a value that radical Islam simply has as an advantage. They are closer to the reality of what that means than we are, and if we play it their way, we are doomed to lose. We have to live up to our humanitarian values in our response if we are to win.
So let's get Bush's and Putin's attention! Are you speaking out of pride brothers Vladimir and W? Listen to me, my friends of a greater good. It's a negative pleasure, your pride, and as you feed it, people die. The world would love a drama as great as the one you envision of a holy standoff between good and evil, where the infidels are vanquished at the point of the mighty Russian (and we could say the same thing for Bush and the American) saber. But while you are waging your mighty battle, many of us will unnecessarily die.
Sadness overwhelms even these most grandiose of visions, and the only recourse is a balance of global manhunts, not global invasions, on the one hand, with a broader attempt at understanding and reconciliation on the other. When a kidnapper has a knife to your throat, it doesn't matter what is right. When a driver at the intersection is not going to stop even though you have the right of way, do you let him go, or do you insist on being dead right? This is not about wrong or right. This is about - at least as new nightmares land in our minds - people with guns to our heads. These people are mad. And we join them when we say there's no other way to deal with them but to try to kill them all.
Because if you go to war in order to kill them, you have to go in there with such firepower that you have to kill lots of innocent people. The innocent who witness and survive these killings hear almost nothing of our reasoning, and would rarely be swayed by it if they did. But they hear a great deal from Mullahs and other leaders that explains it all quite nicely (and even in some cases not so falsely) in terms of imperialism and greed.
There is no more effective way at creating exponentially greater numbers of people who are willing to try to kill us than the current "war on terrorism." When you kill a terrorist using our current methods you make ten more. What we have to do is defeat the idea. In the phrase from the days of Vietnam, we have to win hearts and minds. The only way to do that is to lead by vision, and reach out to those who find themselves alienated from our society. We have to state somehow that we feel their pain.
In the first debate, Kerry said, of the terrorists, I will hunt them down and I will kill them. And for a few very wonderful moments (and this debate would feature many), George Bush was flabbergasted. He stammered his way into the response, but Kerry claimed the only ground that Bush had. Bush's great strength is clinging to these classical images of America, but Kerry had managed to appropriate the central one.
Bush did have a couple solid shots that reflected these classical images. One was shedding a few tears and having a few laughs with a mom of one of the dead soldiers. One was given to the feeling that he met with them just so he could say he did for this debate. More typical of his willingness to share the grief of family's who have lost a child in Iraq (or I what I call A Wreck) is that he never attended one single funeral of over 1,000 US soldiers killed in a war he initiated. The other good punch he got in was when he had 90 seconds to respond a second time about North Korea and he just took a pass, simply saying of his answer: "I already gave it." Lehrer was taken aback, asking Bush if he was sure he was willing to waste 90 seconds of prime time with 70 million people watching. Bush just said, "Yeah, I told you what I think." Right there, Bush showed insane confidence, showed the great power of not caring, that he could just waste that time. And he showed us his non-speechifying style, which was a deeply classical American thematic. "Got nothing to say there." Good for him.
So I tried to put on the George Bush helmet, to see the world the way the people who love him see it. What I saw as I pretended to want him to win was that people appreciate that he's looking out for their interests. They think he will keep the playing field level for folks like them. He'll keep out the weirdoes that bleed off resources. If you're in his club, he'll go on a raid now and again to get you stuff. He is holding down the fort. He's not a Eurofag.
And now we will see if he can hold the fort on having a monopoly on delivering on these deliverables. To my view, Kerry pulled the rug out from under him. He came out feisty and tough and delivered a knockout for the ages.So, it's been awhile since I've spoken up, but Uncle Sam wants you again. Only this time it's not to come join a war; it's to figure out how to unjoin it.
And no, Uncle Sam is not a flip-flopper. That's right America. I can be for one war and against another. If our job is to defeat terrorism, and it is, than the only terror we have to defeat is in our minds. We have to join together on this, and mean it. We can change the world if we put our minds to it. It will take tremendous vigilance, just as George Bush says. But the vigilance is to fight it wherever that makes the most sense, and, frankly, defeat it by communicating with it and deflating it and even reaching out to it where _that_ makes the most sense. The point is to win. The value for doing that is to defuse it by any means possible. Winning means being willing to do what it takes to win, even accommodating it out of existence. What we have to win is not living in a world permeated by terror.
Simply stating in a public way that we are going to come together and focus all our energies on defeating it will defeat it. We will beat it by being sustainable, by being fair, by being unworthy of 9/11. When we are willing to say in the same context as the war on terror: look at how we're exploiting the world, look at our role, then we have begun to dig ourselves out of the denial that’s got us pinned down in this war. I haven't heard anybody say that, and I don’t expect anybody to. I'm willing to support Kerry even if he never gets there. The geopolitical world view he represents is simply closer to that vision even if not articulated by him.
But Uncle Sam can articulate it. That’s my job! And so I say: WE WILL DEFEAT TERRORISM. Say it with me. Of course the outcome is unclear and we don't know if we will fail to defeat it, or if we will succeed in defeating it. So why not assume the latter? After all, your old Uncle Sam is an optimist, and I like to win. Americans know the power of a dream, so let's put our energy into the outcome we want to see.
The 27 year old John F. Kerry testifying to Congress, which C-Span has pieced together from videos and tapes (they switch to still photos of the sessions when all they have is audio -- and they edited them together quite nicely), that's the young America confronting the tyrannical king. Kerry was the kind of guy who threw himself into the war, and lots of historical and otherwise figures have done that. But what makes him American is that he then threw himself into his reaction to the war. And after all the dust settled, John F. Kerry, our Democratic candidate for President, emerged as our country's most notable (and arguably most famous, along with possibly Ron Kovic) and emblematic Vietnam veteran -- the veteran that returned home to speak out against the war.
When he came back and spoke publicly for the first time about the crazy world of "the 'Nam" as it was known to the men who served there, the insane world of mayhem that Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket and before that Deer Hunter and Coming Home portrayed, he was the first. People don't realize it, but Kerry's testimony opened the way for that mythology to enter the American psyche. He really has been a hero, twice. Take a look at the testimony he gave in 1971. http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/audio/kerry3_0001.wmv. You will see a devoutly patriotic guy, who clearly has deep convictions and beliefs, try to bring home the truth, and speak that truth to power about things he sees as Un-American. When Jon Voight is talking to that high school in Coming Home, that's straight John Kerry.
But he was 27, and testifying before congress was about all he could do. So he went to work from there, under the principle that the best inspiration is not only great leaders, but sometimes inept leaders. It is especially American to draw inspiration from seeing that somebody in charge is squandering opportunities. The legacy of our unique revolutionary history is the idea that stupidity is the mother of all political impulse. It makes you want to lead because you can do it better.
Now he's 60, and in one of the most Biblically inspired events in American history, John Kerry is able to step back into the ghost of his 27-year-old self, and inherit the same kind of war all over again. Kerry can say in the same way, with the same orientation, that this war is a mistake, and that we need to get out of it somehow. Hopefully victoriously, but without illusions about what we're up against, America will avoid a foreign entanglement of Washingtonian proportions. And if Kerry can inhabit that ghost, as I began to see him do the other night, it could be positively Lincolnesque. I felt the beginnings of a Kerry policy the other night, tinged with nuances of: "With malice toward none; with charity for all..." Last night what I heard from John Kerry was: I want to be your president and I'm already acting like I am him.
Kerry is slowly saying it: "Sorry folks, but this _is_ Vietnam." Bush's black and white vision is crumbling as Kerry makes it clear that it is about gray areas if we're to get out alive. It's about reaching out to the Muslim world to create non-violent channels of communication. It's about solving this problem. Of course, that means it's about stating this problem first, which neither candidate has done in any meaningful way.
When Putin said: "You want me to negotiate with bastards that kill children!" I thought: "Yes, if those same bastards have potential guns to the heads of more children." We're in a hostage situation, and we have to agree that the first step is to do whatever it takes to talk those nut cases off the ledge. The mistake we're making is not realizing that _pushing_ them off the ledge only encourages more people to imitate them and climb to the ledge themselves.
So long as the core of our response to attacks from radical Islam is KILL THEM, and for this of course I fault Kerry almost as much as Bush, we are feeding the core value of murder as an OK way to deal with problems of inequality. But in a world where murder is used as a political weapon this is a value that radical Islam simply has as an advantage. They are closer to the reality of what that means than we are, and if we play it their way, we are doomed to lose. We have to live up to our humanitarian values in our response if we are to win.
So let's get Bush's and Putin's attention! Are you speaking out of pride brothers Vladimir and W? Listen to me, my friends of a greater good. It's a negative pleasure, your pride, and as you feed it, people die. The world would love a drama as great as the one you envision of a holy standoff between good and evil, where the infidels are vanquished at the point of the mighty Russian (and we could say the same thing for Bush and the American) saber. But while you are waging your mighty battle, many of us will unnecessarily die.
Sadness overwhelms even these most grandiose of visions, and the only recourse is a balance of global manhunts, not global invasions, on the one hand, with a broader attempt at understanding and reconciliation on the other. When a kidnapper has a knife to your throat, it doesn't matter what is right. When a driver at the intersection is not going to stop even though you have the right of way, do you let him go, or do you insist on being dead right? This is not about wrong or right. This is about - at least as new nightmares land in our minds - people with guns to our heads. These people are mad. And we join them when we say there's no other way to deal with them but to try to kill them all.
Because if you go to war in order to kill them, you have to go in there with such firepower that you have to kill lots of innocent people. The innocent who witness and survive these killings hear almost nothing of our reasoning, and would rarely be swayed by it if they did. But they hear a great deal from Mullahs and other leaders that explains it all quite nicely (and even in some cases not so falsely) in terms of imperialism and greed.
There is no more effective way at creating exponentially greater numbers of people who are willing to try to kill us than the current "war on terrorism." When you kill a terrorist using our current methods you make ten more. What we have to do is defeat the idea. In the phrase from the days of Vietnam, we have to win hearts and minds. The only way to do that is to lead by vision, and reach out to those who find themselves alienated from our society. We have to state somehow that we feel their pain.
In the first debate, Kerry said, of the terrorists, I will hunt them down and I will kill them. And for a few very wonderful moments (and this debate would feature many), George Bush was flabbergasted. He stammered his way into the response, but Kerry claimed the only ground that Bush had. Bush's great strength is clinging to these classical images of America, but Kerry had managed to appropriate the central one.
Bush did have a couple solid shots that reflected these classical images. One was shedding a few tears and having a few laughs with a mom of one of the dead soldiers. One was given to the feeling that he met with them just so he could say he did for this debate. More typical of his willingness to share the grief of family's who have lost a child in Iraq (or I what I call A Wreck) is that he never attended one single funeral of over 1,000 US soldiers killed in a war he initiated. The other good punch he got in was when he had 90 seconds to respond a second time about North Korea and he just took a pass, simply saying of his answer: "I already gave it." Lehrer was taken aback, asking Bush if he was sure he was willing to waste 90 seconds of prime time with 70 million people watching. Bush just said, "Yeah, I told you what I think." Right there, Bush showed insane confidence, showed the great power of not caring, that he could just waste that time. And he showed us his non-speechifying style, which was a deeply classical American thematic. "Got nothing to say there." Good for him.
So I tried to put on the George Bush helmet, to see the world the way the people who love him see it. What I saw as I pretended to want him to win was that people appreciate that he's looking out for their interests. They think he will keep the playing field level for folks like them. He'll keep out the weirdoes that bleed off resources. If you're in his club, he'll go on a raid now and again to get you stuff. He is holding down the fort. He's not a Eurofag.
And now we will see if he can hold the fort on having a monopoly on delivering on these deliverables. To my view, Kerry pulled the rug out from under him. He came out feisty and tough and delivered a knockout for the ages.So, it's been awhile since I've spoken up, but Uncle Sam wants you again. Only this time it's not to come join a war; it's to figure out how to unjoin it.
And no, Uncle Sam is not a flip-flopper. That's right America. I can be for one war and against another. If our job is to defeat terrorism, and it is, than the only terror we have to defeat is in our minds. We have to join together on this, and mean it. We can change the world if we put our minds to it. It will take tremendous vigilance, just as George Bush says. But the vigilance is to fight it wherever that makes the most sense, and, frankly, defeat it by communicating with it and deflating it and even reaching out to it where _that_ makes the most sense. The point is to win. The value for doing that is to defuse it by any means possible. Winning means being willing to do what it takes to win, even accommodating it out of existence. What we have to win is not living in a world permeated by terror.
Simply stating in a public way that we are going to come together and focus all our energies on defeating it will defeat it. We will beat it by being sustainable, by being fair, by being unworthy of 9/11. When we are willing to say in the same context as the war on terror: look at how we're exploiting the world, look at our role, then we have begun to dig ourselves out of the denial that’s got us pinned down in this war. I haven't heard anybody say that, and I don’t expect anybody to. I'm willing to support Kerry even if he never gets there. The geopolitical world view he represents is simply closer to that vision even if not articulated by him.
But Uncle Sam can articulate it. That’s my job! And so I say: WE WILL DEFEAT TERRORISM. Say it with me. Of course the outcome is unclear and we don't know if we will fail to defeat it, or if we will succeed in defeating it. So why not assume the latter? After all, your old Uncle Sam is an optimist, and I like to win. Americans know the power of a dream, so let's put our energy into the outcome we want to see.
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
The Threat Within
As the personification of this great country, of course I, Uncle Sam, like all my fellow Americans, want to be rich and live forever. I even believe, contra George Bush, that I will never be truly poor or truly die. I have faith in the promise of America. And I want to make clear that I really like being rich and powerful, and kind of think I deserve it. Could we all be rich and powerful? Why not? But wealth is not my number one priority.
Mainly what I care about is--duh!--my soul. Yes, even Uncle Sam has a soul, and I would rather die and be true to my ideals than live and betray them. That's what being Uncle Sam means to me. If that last sentence sounds quaint or even if it sounds abstract or irrelevant, I would ask you to consider to what degree you've become a victim of these times.
Let me make clear where I stand on this whole soul thing. I am not a pacifist, and as a guy who has always driven a hard bargain, I'm not going to give away the store. As a nation, I cannot abjure the use of power and survive, yet if I don't restrain my predatory development policies I will not prosper. That's what makes the morality of a nation the same as the morality of a person.
From the beginning, I have defined the terms of the compact that guards me from the fatal corruption of my soul or the ruinous tainting of my honor: fight to the death for the idea of freedom, and never allow that idea to be eroded away by small acts of cowardice.
I am especially concerned about our history of extortions, assassinations, and betrayals, as well as our enslavements, invasions, subjugations, conquests, genocides, and annexations. Yes, most of these things seemed necessary at the time, and until recently. And yes, they were all actions that a majority of well-informed citizens signed on to. But the guilt and responsibility for all of my crimes is a part of me. The bad stuff will always be there, but we still have tomorrow in our hands.
Yes, our enemies killed a whole lot of innocent civilians a few years ago, and that proved what we had forgotten, which is that we are vulnerable, and also taught us something new, which is that certain recently developed ideas and technologies mean that the field of war can be carried anywhere, to anyone, at any time.
I know what my pals Washington and Jefferson would have said. "It can be shewn with Authority that the chief Purpose of these, our Near Eastern Enemies at War, is above all to shake the Confidence of the Citizenry in the Principles of this Republic. To curtail our Freedoms in response to these base and cowardly Attacks upon mere Innocents would be to grant these Terroristes nothing less than the Victory for which they strive." Or something like that.
We're going to take some hits. But the original ideal of freedom, the freedome that created our Amerika, is "Don't Tread On Me." They are willing to die; are we? If not, then what is worth dying for? In my short 218 years, I've sacrificed 10 million of my sons to freedom. The real threat is not about whether or not more people are going to die. Of course they will, probably. But we are at a cross-roads, where we have to decide whether being America is about having it easy, or if it is about something else. When I was young, a few hundred years ago, I wouldn't have had to explain this to people, but we've gotten fat and lazy.
We need to rise up, and wake up, and saddle up! I want YOU!
Mainly what I care about is--duh!--my soul. Yes, even Uncle Sam has a soul, and I would rather die and be true to my ideals than live and betray them. That's what being Uncle Sam means to me. If that last sentence sounds quaint or even if it sounds abstract or irrelevant, I would ask you to consider to what degree you've become a victim of these times.
Let me make clear where I stand on this whole soul thing. I am not a pacifist, and as a guy who has always driven a hard bargain, I'm not going to give away the store. As a nation, I cannot abjure the use of power and survive, yet if I don't restrain my predatory development policies I will not prosper. That's what makes the morality of a nation the same as the morality of a person.
From the beginning, I have defined the terms of the compact that guards me from the fatal corruption of my soul or the ruinous tainting of my honor: fight to the death for the idea of freedom, and never allow that idea to be eroded away by small acts of cowardice.
I am especially concerned about our history of extortions, assassinations, and betrayals, as well as our enslavements, invasions, subjugations, conquests, genocides, and annexations. Yes, most of these things seemed necessary at the time, and until recently. And yes, they were all actions that a majority of well-informed citizens signed on to. But the guilt and responsibility for all of my crimes is a part of me. The bad stuff will always be there, but we still have tomorrow in our hands.
Yes, our enemies killed a whole lot of innocent civilians a few years ago, and that proved what we had forgotten, which is that we are vulnerable, and also taught us something new, which is that certain recently developed ideas and technologies mean that the field of war can be carried anywhere, to anyone, at any time.
I know what my pals Washington and Jefferson would have said. "It can be shewn with Authority that the chief Purpose of these, our Near Eastern Enemies at War, is above all to shake the Confidence of the Citizenry in the Principles of this Republic. To curtail our Freedoms in response to these base and cowardly Attacks upon mere Innocents would be to grant these Terroristes nothing less than the Victory for which they strive." Or something like that.
We're going to take some hits. But the original ideal of freedom, the freedome that created our Amerika, is "Don't Tread On Me." They are willing to die; are we? If not, then what is worth dying for? In my short 218 years, I've sacrificed 10 million of my sons to freedom. The real threat is not about whether or not more people are going to die. Of course they will, probably. But we are at a cross-roads, where we have to decide whether being America is about having it easy, or if it is about something else. When I was young, a few hundred years ago, I wouldn't have had to explain this to people, but we've gotten fat and lazy.
We need to rise up, and wake up, and saddle up! I want YOU!
Monday, September 27, 2004
Down to a few
It continues to look bleak, with the NYTimes reporting today that Bush's lead is indeed in the double digits. So, here are some of my suggestions to blow it open:
1) Go on Howard Stern, talk guy talk
2) Have a beer and say "I'd love to do this with George, but he don't drink!"
3) Rent an hour on TV the night before the debates
More free Karl Rove-ish advice to Kerry: In your appearances and in your speeches, you need to develop a theme which will carry you over the transom and on to victory on election day. You need to say the words: "George Bush" over and over as if it was cussing. Over and over. Don't say which George Bush. Lump 'em up, but substitute this phrase for what is wrong, even for terrorism.
Say, but now that we're dealing with... pause ... (and people will wonder what it is you're going to say) George Bush. Saying his name like this, with a sigh, will make it seem synonymous with the problems of the country.
Another limb Kerry might go out on is to address Bush personally. He almost seemed to do it in the 1st debate, and it made for great theatre. He could say: "George, you have awesome powers...you are mighty...(in a very condescending way, as if to say: 'O no, we know you're powerful.'). And when you grabbed for that presidency, that was American. We Democrats were shell shocked. We couldn't believe what you guys did, and in retrospect, we should have fought for every one of those votes down in Florida. But I'm not going to make that mistake this time.
Kerry should say: "I'll make this pledge George Bush. This campaign has been very intense. And whoever wins deserves the full support, assuming we can ascertain that the election was conducted fairly, deserves the full support of the American people, and the full support of their opponent. If we win, I don't want you to run away. If we're going to deal with this new threat of terrorism, we're going to have to have an unprecedented effort. Now Mr. President, I know you have a temper, and can get quite short with people who you don't like or who disagree with you. But are you willing to help this country even if you aren't President. I sure know if I lose I'll still be at your disposal, ready to serve. So please don't turn away in anger if I win...we need you. You've been there.
Actually, in many ways you've done a great job. And my heart goes out to you. But you're messing up on this one major level, which is that what you've set up is gonna cost so many human lives, cost the world so many resources, and indeed could lead to whole sections of the world burning, and so we're here to retire you. But that doesn't mean we won't fight this war."
1) Go on Howard Stern, talk guy talk
2) Have a beer and say "I'd love to do this with George, but he don't drink!"
3) Rent an hour on TV the night before the debates
More free Karl Rove-ish advice to Kerry: In your appearances and in your speeches, you need to develop a theme which will carry you over the transom and on to victory on election day. You need to say the words: "George Bush" over and over as if it was cussing. Over and over. Don't say which George Bush. Lump 'em up, but substitute this phrase for what is wrong, even for terrorism.
Say, but now that we're dealing with... pause ... (and people will wonder what it is you're going to say) George Bush. Saying his name like this, with a sigh, will make it seem synonymous with the problems of the country.
Another limb Kerry might go out on is to address Bush personally. He almost seemed to do it in the 1st debate, and it made for great theatre. He could say: "George, you have awesome powers...you are mighty...(in a very condescending way, as if to say: 'O no, we know you're powerful.'). And when you grabbed for that presidency, that was American. We Democrats were shell shocked. We couldn't believe what you guys did, and in retrospect, we should have fought for every one of those votes down in Florida. But I'm not going to make that mistake this time.
Kerry should say: "I'll make this pledge George Bush. This campaign has been very intense. And whoever wins deserves the full support, assuming we can ascertain that the election was conducted fairly, deserves the full support of the American people, and the full support of their opponent. If we win, I don't want you to run away. If we're going to deal with this new threat of terrorism, we're going to have to have an unprecedented effort. Now Mr. President, I know you have a temper, and can get quite short with people who you don't like or who disagree with you. But are you willing to help this country even if you aren't President. I sure know if I lose I'll still be at your disposal, ready to serve. So please don't turn away in anger if I win...we need you. You've been there.
Actually, in many ways you've done a great job. And my heart goes out to you. But you're messing up on this one major level, which is that what you've set up is gonna cost so many human lives, cost the world so many resources, and indeed could lead to whole sections of the world burning, and so we're here to retire you. But that doesn't mean we won't fight this war."
Sunday, September 26, 2004
Now There's My President
http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/graphics/Dissidents.jpg
http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/graphics/Dartmouth_2.jpg
http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/graphics/Buckley_2.jpg
rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/c04/c04_rwh081504.rm
http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/graphics/VVAW05.jpg
http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/graphics/VVAW03.jpg
http://www.koalaproducts.net/wintersoldier/wintersoldiermod2point2.wmv
http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/audio/kerry3_0001.wmv
Is any of him left?
http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/graphics/Dartmouth_2.jpg
http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/graphics/Buckley_2.jpg
rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/c04/c04_rwh081504.rm
http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/graphics/VVAW05.jpg
http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/graphics/VVAW03.jpg
http://www.koalaproducts.net/wintersoldier/wintersoldiermod2point2.wmv
http://ice.he.net/~freepnet/kerry/audio/kerry3_0001.wmv
Is any of him left?
Deadlines of Sept. 26, 2004
Imagine looking back 100 years, and seeing these as the top 10 headlines (picked off Yahoo! at 11:00 pm) 6 weeks before the presidential election.
U.S. Air Attacks in Falluja Kill 15 in 24 Hours
Suspected Israeli Agents Kill Militant in Syria
Pakistan Kills Militant Wanted for Musharraf Plot
Iraq Dogs Blair as Party Conference Starts
Jeanne Wreaks More Havoc in Battered Fla.
Pearl Slaying Suspect Killed in Pakistan
Kerry, Bush Start Debate Preparations
Iraqi Gen. Arrested As Violence Continues
Oil Heads Toward $49.40 Record
Election Heightens Terrorism Offensive
In my 228 years, this is getting close to as bad as it's been.
U.S. Air Attacks in Falluja Kill 15 in 24 Hours
Suspected Israeli Agents Kill Militant in Syria
Pakistan Kills Militant Wanted for Musharraf Plot
Iraq Dogs Blair as Party Conference Starts
Jeanne Wreaks More Havoc in Battered Fla.
Pearl Slaying Suspect Killed in Pakistan
Kerry, Bush Start Debate Preparations
Iraqi Gen. Arrested As Violence Continues
Oil Heads Toward $49.40 Record
Election Heightens Terrorism Offensive
In my 228 years, this is getting close to as bad as it's been.
News item from week of Sept. 19-26
Last week, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld commented, "Let's say you tried to have an election and you could have it in three-quarters or four-fifths of the country, but some places you couldn't because the violence was too great. Well, that's -- so be it. Nothing's perfect in life. So you have an election that's not quite perfect."
Powell's deputy, Richard Armitage, later said Iraq elections must be "open to all citizens" and that partial elections were not being considered.
Powell's deputy, Richard Armitage, later said Iraq elections must be "open to all citizens" and that partial elections were not being considered.
Friday, September 24, 2004
Satan's PR Guy
My good friend and icon Paul Bunyan contacted me today about the election. Here is what he had to say:
Remember when the sock monkey was choking on pretzels and growing nasty looking boils out of the side of his face? Even as recently as this spring he had a near breakdown during his brief televised press-conference. But Satan has filled him with strength, and he hardly seems like the same man. The AntiChrist clearly is a role that one grows into.The demonic flame that animates him is tricky to manage, it falters when exposed to life, and burns too bright if allowed to feed too hungrily on bloodlust and vengeance. The monkey man, the mockery wrapped in human skin, is always at risk of exposure via some stray flick of the tail. But when he is put through perfectly controlled simulations, he glows with piety and strength. As Satan's PR guys sharpen their skills, we cross into the era of the manufactured event, the manufactured reality, the manufactured person. We hear the vaguely sinister news that Bush forces audience members at his rallies to sign loyalty oaths, and at first it makes no sense. By the old logic of politics, a politician wants to show himself, to speak to the people. But Bush is an avatar of Power, Power for its own sake, built around a contentless, devouring void. The rallies of the faithful are a shroud of concealment around his emptiness, and at the same time they are a kind of summoning ritual. The faith of the believers is the power source from which is manufactured the illusion of Bush, the good and strong man.
Remember when the sock monkey was choking on pretzels and growing nasty looking boils out of the side of his face? Even as recently as this spring he had a near breakdown during his brief televised press-conference. But Satan has filled him with strength, and he hardly seems like the same man. The AntiChrist clearly is a role that one grows into.The demonic flame that animates him is tricky to manage, it falters when exposed to life, and burns too bright if allowed to feed too hungrily on bloodlust and vengeance. The monkey man, the mockery wrapped in human skin, is always at risk of exposure via some stray flick of the tail. But when he is put through perfectly controlled simulations, he glows with piety and strength. As Satan's PR guys sharpen their skills, we cross into the era of the manufactured event, the manufactured reality, the manufactured person. We hear the vaguely sinister news that Bush forces audience members at his rallies to sign loyalty oaths, and at first it makes no sense. By the old logic of politics, a politician wants to show himself, to speak to the people. But Bush is an avatar of Power, Power for its own sake, built around a contentless, devouring void. The rallies of the faithful are a shroud of concealment around his emptiness, and at the same time they are a kind of summoning ritual. The faith of the believers is the power source from which is manufactured the illusion of Bush, the good and strong man.
Thursday, September 23, 2004
Who can you trust?
I recently received a letter from Kerry HQ telling me how Kerry has a lead in all battleground states. I find myself angry and upset. How can this claim be made, how can this be true when the news reports that the Kerry campaign has just decided to withdraw ads from Arizona and 3 other battleground states because there's no hope. How when all the major polls show Bush winning the electoral college in these states, and overall. What about the Kerry campaign responding to questions raised in the Rove interview a couple days ago, where he makes the case that the race is over? Why are they not responding to those things that, were I even to care what they are saying, I would as an interested voter know about? I asked my buddy Paul Bunyan about it, and he said:
This (Kerry campaign) letter is more or less consistent with what I know. This has been a very bizarre campaign in terms of polls. For example, on the same day a week or so ago that big headlines came out all over on the 11-point gallup lead holding steady, the Pew Trusts poll--which also had shown a Bush lead before--had the lead narrowed to zero or one. Never have I witnessed such disparities among the polling concerns. And why would they even lie? Isn't that dangerous, as maybe motivating the opposition? But no, Karl Rove is always right. The advantage of demoralization is much greater than the risk of mobilization. 10 or 20 or 50 years from now, we will look back and it will be an accepted wisdom that the media is conservative-biased, just as it is a quaint remnant assumption that it is now liberal. The Zogby thing refers to "the internals" in polling and has to do with the usual dem/repub non-voter factor--basically if everybody who is eligible to vote voted, no republican would ever hold a single office anywhere in the land, so it's all turnout. And there apparently is some data showing that there might be a high Dem turnout in this election because of Bush Hatred if not Kerry Love, and that therefore some of the people judged as non-likely voters might in fact vote more than thought. And that in turn refers to the fact that these big bush leads that are trumpeted in headlines are ALL based on likely voters. The all-registered-voters polls show a close race, and the all-elligible-to-vote-people polls (if they even exist) probably show a Kerry lead. But we can't criticize Kerry for not responding to poll-based attacks, I don't think. Though there is much else to crtiticize. I have more half-done, and blog -ready in pipline on that, but really busy with (unpaid) work right now. You Must Read Stanley FIsh's op-ed in nytimes of today. --Paul Bunyan
KERRY CAMPAIGN LETTER I GOT TODAY
Dear Uncle Sam,
Please make a contribution to the Democratic Party before the 9/30 deadline.There can be no doubt: the momentum is on our side.George W. Bush's post-convention bounce has evaporated. Five new national polls this week show the race tied, with the difference within the margin of error in every single one of the polls. Three of the polls have the race within one point or less.And if you think the national polls are looking good, the story in the battleground states is even better. Recent battleground polls from Zogby and American Research Group show John Kerry winning enough electoral votes to take back the White House. Kerry is leading among independents and swing voters. And the majority of Americans know that George W. Bush is moving America in the wrong direction.Now let's be clear about what this means -- good news in the polls isn't enough to win this election. Now that their lead has evaporated, the Bush-Cheney team and the Republicans are going to kick their smear machine into high gear. You're going to see attacks in the next few weeks like nothing you have ever seen before. This is the moment where every last dollar counts -- it does not get any more urgent than the Democratic Party's September 30 deadline.This is our moment. We have the strength. I urge you to stand with us today by making a donation to the Democratic Party.https://www.democrats.org/support/kerry.htmlThank you for all that you do,Mary Beth CahillCampaign ManagerKerry-Edwards 2004
This (Kerry campaign) letter is more or less consistent with what I know. This has been a very bizarre campaign in terms of polls. For example, on the same day a week or so ago that big headlines came out all over on the 11-point gallup lead holding steady, the Pew Trusts poll--which also had shown a Bush lead before--had the lead narrowed to zero or one. Never have I witnessed such disparities among the polling concerns. And why would they even lie? Isn't that dangerous, as maybe motivating the opposition? But no, Karl Rove is always right. The advantage of demoralization is much greater than the risk of mobilization. 10 or 20 or 50 years from now, we will look back and it will be an accepted wisdom that the media is conservative-biased, just as it is a quaint remnant assumption that it is now liberal. The Zogby thing refers to "the internals" in polling and has to do with the usual dem/repub non-voter factor--basically if everybody who is eligible to vote voted, no republican would ever hold a single office anywhere in the land, so it's all turnout. And there apparently is some data showing that there might be a high Dem turnout in this election because of Bush Hatred if not Kerry Love, and that therefore some of the people judged as non-likely voters might in fact vote more than thought. And that in turn refers to the fact that these big bush leads that are trumpeted in headlines are ALL based on likely voters. The all-registered-voters polls show a close race, and the all-elligible-to-vote-people polls (if they even exist) probably show a Kerry lead. But we can't criticize Kerry for not responding to poll-based attacks, I don't think. Though there is much else to crtiticize. I have more half-done, and blog -ready in pipline on that, but really busy with (unpaid) work right now. You Must Read Stanley FIsh's op-ed in nytimes of today. --Paul Bunyan
KERRY CAMPAIGN LETTER I GOT TODAY
Dear Uncle Sam,
Please make a contribution to the Democratic Party before the 9/30 deadline.There can be no doubt: the momentum is on our side.George W. Bush's post-convention bounce has evaporated. Five new national polls this week show the race tied, with the difference within the margin of error in every single one of the polls. Three of the polls have the race within one point or less.And if you think the national polls are looking good, the story in the battleground states is even better. Recent battleground polls from Zogby and American Research Group show John Kerry winning enough electoral votes to take back the White House. Kerry is leading among independents and swing voters. And the majority of Americans know that George W. Bush is moving America in the wrong direction.Now let's be clear about what this means -- good news in the polls isn't enough to win this election. Now that their lead has evaporated, the Bush-Cheney team and the Republicans are going to kick their smear machine into high gear. You're going to see attacks in the next few weeks like nothing you have ever seen before. This is the moment where every last dollar counts -- it does not get any more urgent than the Democratic Party's September 30 deadline.This is our moment. We have the strength. I urge you to stand with us today by making a donation to the Democratic Party.https://www.democrats.org/support/kerry.htmlThank you for all that you do,Mary Beth CahillCampaign ManagerKerry-Edwards 2004
Wednesday, September 08, 2004
Another Letter from Paul Bunyan
Dear Uncle Sam,
The Bush people do look good, even though they are so ugly, due to the same reptilian semiotic cloud that makes people call Donald Trump "handsome." To the rat about to be eaten, the snake is a glorious idol, blah blah blah.
There are limits to what a person can stomach, though. Personally, I'm not very susceptible to Trump's allure, probably because casinos, lisping women with breast implants, and quasi-criminal wealth are not my cup of tea. But the aura of real power--to kill, conquer, destroy--has universal appeal. Of course some of the really big-time guys can be a little repulsive--I'm thinking of say a Mao or a Hitler--because their perversion and madness are so strongly evident. But give me Stalin or Saddam, those some beautiful sexy guy, yes.
In the old days, a political king might be a pervert, but a warrior king was always a babe. The days when men were cleansed in the purifying fire of war are gone--though not so long gone. Napoleon was a bit of a freak, but Admiral Nelson was sexier than 10 Mick Jaggers, if not quite on the demi-god level of Genghis Khan, Alexander, Achilles, David, etc., from the real good old days.
The whole machines, guns, bombs, genocide thing has totally messed up the great institution of war. It used to be that being in "politics," that is to be in power, was all about fighting in wars. The price you paid for owning everything was having to fight about it. Since sometime around the invention of the repeating rifle the rich have increasingly decided they had "other priorities" than fighting in the wars they start.
This has to be why people love curious George for his National Guard lark. Hell, he had so much clout that he not only got into the Guard, but blew it off with impunity. A lot of voters may deny or discount the relevance of this story on a conscious level, but unconsciously they recognize it all as the stamp of American crypto-royalty. Whereas Kerry threw himself into a war that he easily could have deferred out of, and then even put himself in combat after getting assigned to safe duty. Idiot! That is not how a powerful man behaves in this era. What a phony he is for acting with circa 1863 bravery in 1968. What a flip-flopper.
Bush, being indeed Belial, the AntiChrist, the sexiness is spoiled for me. It's the worms, the death around him, the devil's tail poking out of the suit a bit. Cheney is not human at all, doesn't even pretend, but is Abadon, Regional Vice President of Hell. He's there as the numbers guy, with the experience to speak for Satan on the spot on any policy decision. Ashcroft is of course possessed by Asmodeus, and no human part of him is aware of what he does.
All of these guys have their appeal, if one overlooks their faults. But only Donald Rumsfeld is really sexy. That's because he's the only one who is fully human. It's the only position Satan could trust to an ordinary human: VP of War Without End. I heard Rumsfeld speak today, addressing something called the National Press Club. Man, when he gets angry, which is a lot, he really scares me. My stomach goes fluttery like the rare times when my dad used to lose it, or like when I got in a face-off with the huge black alcoholic ex-prize-fighter at a factory job I once had, or like one of the times I got mugged. And people love it. He may not be Alexander, or Nelson, or even Patton (and of course it's all an act though Rumsfeld, unlike all the others with Bush, did do some light military service 45 years ago), but he wears the mantle of War.
And it's very nice. Sure, war has continued to be something of a disappointment in recent times, with its long range killing, confused objectives, and the extremely high proportion of survivable hideous mutilations suffered. But the talk of war is as great as it ever was. Every time Rumsfeld got really disturbingly angry in his talk today, he would finish off with some nonsensical patriotic platitudes, and get a round of applause (from a crowd, I think, of journalists!). For example (I took notes on this), when Rumsfeld was asked about whether he had mislead the public about the "costs of war" (not even about the reasons for the war) he became frighteningly incensed, and raved gloriously for a while without answering the question. Then he offered this peroration: "don't be fainthearted, don't think you can make a separate peace, don't think you can make a private deal (pause, and then reverently) we're in it together" (pause, thunderous applause of journalists). Needless to say, there was no follow-up.
The concept of the purifying fire of something or other is alive and well. War, having become a video game of kill-zones and booby-traps, may no longer be effectively providing this to its primary consumers. But the audience at home can get the same horror movie thrill from the bullying Sergeant, the drink-deprived Dad, the scary Uncle (not you), and the other really truly fucking scary Uncle. Pain feels good when it's for a holy cause. In fact it feels better than pleasure, and virtual pain for a virtual cause feels almost as good as pleasure.
I think it's time to start thinking about the 2008 election. (Or possibly just reading and re-reading the Book of Revelation.) I have been leary of the Hillary candidacy generally, but it may be that, with 2 to 5 cities around the world having been reduced to smoking nuclear craters by that time, this country may be ready for a woman's touch. Otherwise, we need an actor. I'm thinking Warren Beatty, but I hear he's reluctant. Tim Robbins, I don't think. I got it--Jeff Bridges. Why not?
Sincerely,
~ Paul Bunyan
The Bush people do look good, even though they are so ugly, due to the same reptilian semiotic cloud that makes people call Donald Trump "handsome." To the rat about to be eaten, the snake is a glorious idol, blah blah blah.
There are limits to what a person can stomach, though. Personally, I'm not very susceptible to Trump's allure, probably because casinos, lisping women with breast implants, and quasi-criminal wealth are not my cup of tea. But the aura of real power--to kill, conquer, destroy--has universal appeal. Of course some of the really big-time guys can be a little repulsive--I'm thinking of say a Mao or a Hitler--because their perversion and madness are so strongly evident. But give me Stalin or Saddam, those some beautiful sexy guy, yes.
In the old days, a political king might be a pervert, but a warrior king was always a babe. The days when men were cleansed in the purifying fire of war are gone--though not so long gone. Napoleon was a bit of a freak, but Admiral Nelson was sexier than 10 Mick Jaggers, if not quite on the demi-god level of Genghis Khan, Alexander, Achilles, David, etc., from the real good old days.
The whole machines, guns, bombs, genocide thing has totally messed up the great institution of war. It used to be that being in "politics," that is to be in power, was all about fighting in wars. The price you paid for owning everything was having to fight about it. Since sometime around the invention of the repeating rifle the rich have increasingly decided they had "other priorities" than fighting in the wars they start.
This has to be why people love curious George for his National Guard lark. Hell, he had so much clout that he not only got into the Guard, but blew it off with impunity. A lot of voters may deny or discount the relevance of this story on a conscious level, but unconsciously they recognize it all as the stamp of American crypto-royalty. Whereas Kerry threw himself into a war that he easily could have deferred out of, and then even put himself in combat after getting assigned to safe duty. Idiot! That is not how a powerful man behaves in this era. What a phony he is for acting with circa 1863 bravery in 1968. What a flip-flopper.
Bush, being indeed Belial, the AntiChrist, the sexiness is spoiled for me. It's the worms, the death around him, the devil's tail poking out of the suit a bit. Cheney is not human at all, doesn't even pretend, but is Abadon, Regional Vice President of Hell. He's there as the numbers guy, with the experience to speak for Satan on the spot on any policy decision. Ashcroft is of course possessed by Asmodeus, and no human part of him is aware of what he does.
All of these guys have their appeal, if one overlooks their faults. But only Donald Rumsfeld is really sexy. That's because he's the only one who is fully human. It's the only position Satan could trust to an ordinary human: VP of War Without End. I heard Rumsfeld speak today, addressing something called the National Press Club. Man, when he gets angry, which is a lot, he really scares me. My stomach goes fluttery like the rare times when my dad used to lose it, or like when I got in a face-off with the huge black alcoholic ex-prize-fighter at a factory job I once had, or like one of the times I got mugged. And people love it. He may not be Alexander, or Nelson, or even Patton (and of course it's all an act though Rumsfeld, unlike all the others with Bush, did do some light military service 45 years ago), but he wears the mantle of War.
And it's very nice. Sure, war has continued to be something of a disappointment in recent times, with its long range killing, confused objectives, and the extremely high proportion of survivable hideous mutilations suffered. But the talk of war is as great as it ever was. Every time Rumsfeld got really disturbingly angry in his talk today, he would finish off with some nonsensical patriotic platitudes, and get a round of applause (from a crowd, I think, of journalists!). For example (I took notes on this), when Rumsfeld was asked about whether he had mislead the public about the "costs of war" (not even about the reasons for the war) he became frighteningly incensed, and raved gloriously for a while without answering the question. Then he offered this peroration: "don't be fainthearted, don't think you can make a separate peace, don't think you can make a private deal (pause, and then reverently) we're in it together" (pause, thunderous applause of journalists). Needless to say, there was no follow-up.
The concept of the purifying fire of something or other is alive and well. War, having become a video game of kill-zones and booby-traps, may no longer be effectively providing this to its primary consumers. But the audience at home can get the same horror movie thrill from the bullying Sergeant, the drink-deprived Dad, the scary Uncle (not you), and the other really truly fucking scary Uncle. Pain feels good when it's for a holy cause. In fact it feels better than pleasure, and virtual pain for a virtual cause feels almost as good as pleasure.
I think it's time to start thinking about the 2008 election. (Or possibly just reading and re-reading the Book of Revelation.) I have been leary of the Hillary candidacy generally, but it may be that, with 2 to 5 cities around the world having been reduced to smoking nuclear craters by that time, this country may be ready for a woman's touch. Otherwise, we need an actor. I'm thinking Warren Beatty, but I hear he's reluctant. Tim Robbins, I don't think. I got it--Jeff Bridges. Why not?
Sincerely,
~ Paul Bunyan
Tuesday, September 07, 2004
Two Months to Election Day
Watching Bush deliver his Roman speech in-the-round at the convention, my first thought was that W was taking some of Colin Powell's Ambien. Bush has hit that white light that you can now get in the double-oughts, with an amazing mix of endorphin+dopamine cocktail vitamins, unbelievable White House food, Condi's suckling love, and the warmth from Cheney's hands.
Whatever drug it was (maybe only Baptist fervor or pre-speech sex with wraiths summoned from hell), the monkey-faced wind sock quietly glowed with pleasure. He seemed drained, post-coital, and as he twisted his mouth into that smug smile, as he always does after every teleprompter paragraph, I really thought he might drool a little.
The only other thing I saw was Kerry's hurried speech, the whole thing. When he "reported for duty," I confess I felt proud. It was like: let’s get ready to rumble. I know I was supposed to cringe, but I'm Uncle Sam, dammit, and I felt proud in a way I could not control, like this guy was going to come and save us from the nasty little boy king from the Twilight Zone who was wishing everybody into the cornfield. Plus, Kerry is allowed to say "reporting for duty." In the context of this election; in the context of whatever war this is, he was. Plus it was in fact real. He served his country when he didn't have to and proved he has huge balls.
But by speech's end, I felt like Dukakis in the tank. I felt like Muskie in the snow on the sidewalk. Kerry wasn't coming out and telling us Bush was robbing us. He wasn't saying the war was wrong. And my feeling of pride had ground to a pathetic halt. Which is too bad, because the Bush administraiton could easily come crashing down if somebody (OK, it has to be John Kerry) takes even the slightest step off the set and shows the guy wires and how everything’s propped up. I want to hear him talking about “Where are we going with all this anyway?” -- _any_ kind of philosophical approach or honest approach and it’s a real election. The only way for Kerry to win is to own who he is and go meta. He has to expose the elite world he is so much a part of let the chips fall where they do. But he ain't gonna do that.
Uncle Sam's view of conspiracies is that while there indeed may be no ruling conspiracy, there are surely alliances of interests and profilage little "conspiracies." The overwhelming historical movement of the last 30 years has been the consolidation of business entities and of business power, and the concomitant development of increasingly kick-ass political strategies aimed at one single coherent goal: to shift more wealth into the pockets of large corporations and the very wealthy individuals that run them.
The Reagan election was the spearhead of the first great victory of this process on the political side (again, not a conspiracy, but rather an aggregate of allied groups all working more or less separately toward a more or less shared goal). And nobody loved Reagan more than small-time Texas farmers, factory workers in Cleveland, out-of-work insurance salesmen in Missouri, folks who had gotten so played that they perceived Reagan as the enemy of the very cabal whose chief servant and figurehead was in fact Reagan himself. The farmer knew he was being screwed, and the pseudo-cabal had convinced him that it was Jimmy Carter who was doing the screwing.
The key to Reagan's victory is working for Bush again today. The farmer guy seeks comfort, he wants Daddy, he wants an end to his thinking, an answer, like the bible and Robert Ludlum give. He can't handle some messy story about lots of different people acting out of greed and self-interest, and every now grasping at an idea. He finds comfort in knowing that there is a hand on the tiller, even if it is the Devil, or space aliens, or the Jews.
Sure, there's no cabal. But if you take cabal in a virtual sense, a Hegelian-cabal, then who is the real wild-card, the interloper? It's Clinton. Hell, he maybe would never have gotten elected without the other wild-card, Ross Perot. And what proves that there is a virtual "cabal," that is some superorganic principle that defends the status quo of power, once the smart hick got into power, the people would have elected him to 3 terms at least, if it were legal. And his heir-apparent would be president right now if not for Jeb Bush's police.
But the question now is, was this the last gasp? Was this the last moment of democracy? Because the Texas farmer had the wrong guy but the right idea, power does control the field, but sometimes, ever so rarely, there are anomalies that slip in the back door. I'm not saying that Clinton was great president, or a hero, or anything else, but only that he was an anomaly, a shard of something human in the machine. And he might be the last we will see in a long time.
There aren't many Americans I would say remind me of Hitler. TR and Wilson had certain elements, and maybe Bush has everybody beat. But I recognize that in a sense, when I see Bush as Hitler it's out of hopefulness, because Hitler has an end to it. But maybe he's not Hitler; maybe he's Caesar. The end to that is a lot nastier, and lasts a whole lot longer. What we are seeing is the creation of what may well be a permanent and unstoppable alliance between two groups who have almost nothing in common--corporate America, who are mostly perverts and drug abusers, and socially conservative America, who are mostly poor. As unholy as it seems, the alliance really makes perfect sense. The rich don't give a fuck about abortion rights or creationism or gay rights. They can get all the abortions, or actually correct education, or gay sex that they want through their own exclusive sources. And the social conservatives are too busy rolling around on the floor of their churches speaking in tongues to care about the erosion of their civil rights and the ruination of the national budget to pay for tax cuts for the rich. But together, they can win elections.
Why Kerry/Gore/Dukakis are so lame I can't account for. But why Bush and Reagan win is because they are actors, and nothing more. It was genius on the part of the corporate pseudo-cabal to realize that the people will always go for an actor with really good writers and directors behind him. I don't think the opposition will ever be able to do that though. Kerry and every Dem loser before has been criticized for not having a "coherent message." But because there is no Cabal on either side, a coherent message is hard to come by. The Repubs have an advantage, however, because the policy that the pseudo-cabal of the rich drives toward is simply whatever gives more money to the rich. This allows them to be "coherent" without having to actually conspire. They have really good accountants, and so there is always a simple bottom line for every "clean skies" or "healthy forests" initiative. But there is nothing comparable on the opposition side, nothing that translates into a figure.
Good acting, writing, and directing can do anything. Bush, the figurehead of the most deceptive administration in recent history or probably ever, is perceived as "sincere." Kerry, with a silver star, has his war record compared unfavorably with a draft-dodging deserter.
But what was I thinking? Bush is not Hitler or Caesar. He's the anti-Christ. He seems like the savior, but he's the doomer. He seems warm and nice, but he's full of worms. He's a nasty little bully and he knows it and he's fine with it and what's the capper: we're fine with it. Or are we? We shall see. Assuming we are, fine. Let it go down. Speaking of which, here's something worth watching: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/graphics/packageart/bush/tsg_bush.avi.
To summarize:
1) They have mastered the big lie, and the little guy who is getting screwed most by it is supporting it the most.
2) Reagan seen as the interloper, when really it was Clinton (side issue), but mainly
3) An unholy alliance between big business and small-town America (which again is like #1, but this is a political mandate).
Whatever drug it was (maybe only Baptist fervor or pre-speech sex with wraiths summoned from hell), the monkey-faced wind sock quietly glowed with pleasure. He seemed drained, post-coital, and as he twisted his mouth into that smug smile, as he always does after every teleprompter paragraph, I really thought he might drool a little.
The only other thing I saw was Kerry's hurried speech, the whole thing. When he "reported for duty," I confess I felt proud. It was like: let’s get ready to rumble. I know I was supposed to cringe, but I'm Uncle Sam, dammit, and I felt proud in a way I could not control, like this guy was going to come and save us from the nasty little boy king from the Twilight Zone who was wishing everybody into the cornfield. Plus, Kerry is allowed to say "reporting for duty." In the context of this election; in the context of whatever war this is, he was. Plus it was in fact real. He served his country when he didn't have to and proved he has huge balls.
But by speech's end, I felt like Dukakis in the tank. I felt like Muskie in the snow on the sidewalk. Kerry wasn't coming out and telling us Bush was robbing us. He wasn't saying the war was wrong. And my feeling of pride had ground to a pathetic halt. Which is too bad, because the Bush administraiton could easily come crashing down if somebody (OK, it has to be John Kerry) takes even the slightest step off the set and shows the guy wires and how everything’s propped up. I want to hear him talking about “Where are we going with all this anyway?” -- _any_ kind of philosophical approach or honest approach and it’s a real election. The only way for Kerry to win is to own who he is and go meta. He has to expose the elite world he is so much a part of let the chips fall where they do. But he ain't gonna do that.
Uncle Sam's view of conspiracies is that while there indeed may be no ruling conspiracy, there are surely alliances of interests and profilage little "conspiracies." The overwhelming historical movement of the last 30 years has been the consolidation of business entities and of business power, and the concomitant development of increasingly kick-ass political strategies aimed at one single coherent goal: to shift more wealth into the pockets of large corporations and the very wealthy individuals that run them.
The Reagan election was the spearhead of the first great victory of this process on the political side (again, not a conspiracy, but rather an aggregate of allied groups all working more or less separately toward a more or less shared goal). And nobody loved Reagan more than small-time Texas farmers, factory workers in Cleveland, out-of-work insurance salesmen in Missouri, folks who had gotten so played that they perceived Reagan as the enemy of the very cabal whose chief servant and figurehead was in fact Reagan himself. The farmer knew he was being screwed, and the pseudo-cabal had convinced him that it was Jimmy Carter who was doing the screwing.
The key to Reagan's victory is working for Bush again today. The farmer guy seeks comfort, he wants Daddy, he wants an end to his thinking, an answer, like the bible and Robert Ludlum give. He can't handle some messy story about lots of different people acting out of greed and self-interest, and every now grasping at an idea. He finds comfort in knowing that there is a hand on the tiller, even if it is the Devil, or space aliens, or the Jews.
Sure, there's no cabal. But if you take cabal in a virtual sense, a Hegelian-cabal, then who is the real wild-card, the interloper? It's Clinton. Hell, he maybe would never have gotten elected without the other wild-card, Ross Perot. And what proves that there is a virtual "cabal," that is some superorganic principle that defends the status quo of power, once the smart hick got into power, the people would have elected him to 3 terms at least, if it were legal. And his heir-apparent would be president right now if not for Jeb Bush's police.
But the question now is, was this the last gasp? Was this the last moment of democracy? Because the Texas farmer had the wrong guy but the right idea, power does control the field, but sometimes, ever so rarely, there are anomalies that slip in the back door. I'm not saying that Clinton was great president, or a hero, or anything else, but only that he was an anomaly, a shard of something human in the machine. And he might be the last we will see in a long time.
There aren't many Americans I would say remind me of Hitler. TR and Wilson had certain elements, and maybe Bush has everybody beat. But I recognize that in a sense, when I see Bush as Hitler it's out of hopefulness, because Hitler has an end to it. But maybe he's not Hitler; maybe he's Caesar. The end to that is a lot nastier, and lasts a whole lot longer. What we are seeing is the creation of what may well be a permanent and unstoppable alliance between two groups who have almost nothing in common--corporate America, who are mostly perverts and drug abusers, and socially conservative America, who are mostly poor. As unholy as it seems, the alliance really makes perfect sense. The rich don't give a fuck about abortion rights or creationism or gay rights. They can get all the abortions, or actually correct education, or gay sex that they want through their own exclusive sources. And the social conservatives are too busy rolling around on the floor of their churches speaking in tongues to care about the erosion of their civil rights and the ruination of the national budget to pay for tax cuts for the rich. But together, they can win elections.
Why Kerry/Gore/Dukakis are so lame I can't account for. But why Bush and Reagan win is because they are actors, and nothing more. It was genius on the part of the corporate pseudo-cabal to realize that the people will always go for an actor with really good writers and directors behind him. I don't think the opposition will ever be able to do that though. Kerry and every Dem loser before has been criticized for not having a "coherent message." But because there is no Cabal on either side, a coherent message is hard to come by. The Repubs have an advantage, however, because the policy that the pseudo-cabal of the rich drives toward is simply whatever gives more money to the rich. This allows them to be "coherent" without having to actually conspire. They have really good accountants, and so there is always a simple bottom line for every "clean skies" or "healthy forests" initiative. But there is nothing comparable on the opposition side, nothing that translates into a figure.
Good acting, writing, and directing can do anything. Bush, the figurehead of the most deceptive administration in recent history or probably ever, is perceived as "sincere." Kerry, with a silver star, has his war record compared unfavorably with a draft-dodging deserter.
But what was I thinking? Bush is not Hitler or Caesar. He's the anti-Christ. He seems like the savior, but he's the doomer. He seems warm and nice, but he's full of worms. He's a nasty little bully and he knows it and he's fine with it and what's the capper: we're fine with it. Or are we? We shall see. Assuming we are, fine. Let it go down. Speaking of which, here's something worth watching: http://www.thesmokinggun.com/graphics/packageart/bush/tsg_bush.avi.
To summarize:
1) They have mastered the big lie, and the little guy who is getting screwed most by it is supporting it the most.
2) Reagan seen as the interloper, when really it was Clinton (side issue), but mainly
3) An unholy alliance between big business and small-town America (which again is like #1, but this is a political mandate).
Saturday, September 04, 2004
Telegram from Lady Liberty
Lady Liberty, who is a close and personal friend of mine, wrote me today:
God, it's so fucking disheartening. I really was batting for Kerry -
he quoted Gide to the New York Times ("Do not think you know me too
soon" - jeez I never hoped this was true more than now), I think his
daughters are a couple of hot babes - and he really knows how to hunt
down and tear into a piece of meat, which, to tell you the truth, is
my last best hope for him (speaking of the possible advantages of meat
eating.) But Bush really looks hot, don't he. those dudes who told him
to ditch the suit and tie and just roll up his sexy muted cotton
shirt-sleeves are real fashion geniuses. They rival the
Queer-EyeFor-The-Straight-Guy guys in media savvy.
However, did you just see Zel Miller? he displayed himself as a real
honest to goodness idiot in front of that bastion of rationality, Wolf
Blitzer.
Wolf (I feel I can call him Wolf) asked him why he was a democrat
seeing as he disagreed with most of the democratic agenda and he
replied that "I was born a democrat and I'll die a democrat, and when
I meet my maker it'll be as a democrat" and that he was merely voting
for "conservative" proposals, and that if the DEMOCRATS had put forth
these conservative proposals, well then by God he would've voted as a
democrat! It just happened that the Republicans were putting forth the
conservative proposals that he agreed with, so as a lifeling
unrepentant Democrat, he was voting Republican all the way!
In other words, he's OUT OF HIS MIND!!! None of the pundits even knew
how to respond to him!!!!!!! But do you think that the Kerry campaign
will use this bizarre footage to their advantage? I doubt it.
Meanwhile, I actually have been starting to get nostalgic for Nader.
Fucking
Zel Miller.
I read a kind of cute article in the Guardian in London that said that
alot of Royalty buffs in the U.K. feel that Kerry is sure to win
because he has more blood connections to nobility than any other
president or presidential candidate before him.
I guess they haven't spent much time at the Walmart in Akron. Then
again neither have I.
See you after the elections. I'm going to Canada.
Love,
~ LL
I, Uncle Sam, being the kind of guy I am, wrote her back before she left however:
To me what's insane is being in charge of significant material and human resources, like a country, and at the same time believing that the supreme ruler of the universe wants your side to win. "In God We Trust" is a phrase I can live with. "God Bless America" is a phrase I cannot. The first puts the responsibility on us; the second assumes that the Almighty is listening and may, if we play our cards right, respond to our needs (or at least our pop music). The idea that whatever spiritual source could ever be called God could be petitioned to support the fortunes of an artificial construct like a nation-state or religion is repugnant to me, and an insult to the humble folk of the world.
Now, there are two kinds of people in the world, people like Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush, and people not like them. People like them believe that there is a (very anthropomorphic) Lord in heaven that is stage-managing the human endeavor. The idea is that God, praised be He, hears our prayers and answers the prayers of the righteous.
When Zell Miller says that the reason that we must elect Bush is "the fact that he is unashamed of his belief that God is not indifferent to America," he is of course stating the extremist Muslim position as well. It's freakish to imagine that in 2004 we're in a "God is on our side" war, but this is the MAD-like, Tarantino-like death-grip they've got us sucked into.
Somehow Kerry's got to smoke these evil-doers out of their holes and hiding places. And the only way he can do that is to say something true. But the Devil has him by the throat too.
~ U.S.
God, it's so fucking disheartening. I really was batting for Kerry -
he quoted Gide to the New York Times ("Do not think you know me too
soon" - jeez I never hoped this was true more than now), I think his
daughters are a couple of hot babes - and he really knows how to hunt
down and tear into a piece of meat, which, to tell you the truth, is
my last best hope for him (speaking of the possible advantages of meat
eating.) But Bush really looks hot, don't he. those dudes who told him
to ditch the suit and tie and just roll up his sexy muted cotton
shirt-sleeves are real fashion geniuses. They rival the
Queer-EyeFor-The-Straight-Guy guys in media savvy.
However, did you just see Zel Miller? he displayed himself as a real
honest to goodness idiot in front of that bastion of rationality, Wolf
Blitzer.
Wolf (I feel I can call him Wolf) asked him why he was a democrat
seeing as he disagreed with most of the democratic agenda and he
replied that "I was born a democrat and I'll die a democrat, and when
I meet my maker it'll be as a democrat" and that he was merely voting
for "conservative" proposals, and that if the DEMOCRATS had put forth
these conservative proposals, well then by God he would've voted as a
democrat! It just happened that the Republicans were putting forth the
conservative proposals that he agreed with, so as a lifeling
unrepentant Democrat, he was voting Republican all the way!
In other words, he's OUT OF HIS MIND!!! None of the pundits even knew
how to respond to him!!!!!!! But do you think that the Kerry campaign
will use this bizarre footage to their advantage? I doubt it.
Meanwhile, I actually have been starting to get nostalgic for Nader.
Fucking
Zel Miller.
I read a kind of cute article in the Guardian in London that said that
alot of Royalty buffs in the U.K. feel that Kerry is sure to win
because he has more blood connections to nobility than any other
president or presidential candidate before him.
I guess they haven't spent much time at the Walmart in Akron. Then
again neither have I.
See you after the elections. I'm going to Canada.
Love,
~ LL
I, Uncle Sam, being the kind of guy I am, wrote her back before she left however:
To me what's insane is being in charge of significant material and human resources, like a country, and at the same time believing that the supreme ruler of the universe wants your side to win. "In God We Trust" is a phrase I can live with. "God Bless America" is a phrase I cannot. The first puts the responsibility on us; the second assumes that the Almighty is listening and may, if we play our cards right, respond to our needs (or at least our pop music). The idea that whatever spiritual source could ever be called God could be petitioned to support the fortunes of an artificial construct like a nation-state or religion is repugnant to me, and an insult to the humble folk of the world.
Now, there are two kinds of people in the world, people like Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush, and people not like them. People like them believe that there is a (very anthropomorphic) Lord in heaven that is stage-managing the human endeavor. The idea is that God, praised be He, hears our prayers and answers the prayers of the righteous.
When Zell Miller says that the reason that we must elect Bush is "the fact that he is unashamed of his belief that God is not indifferent to America," he is of course stating the extremist Muslim position as well. It's freakish to imagine that in 2004 we're in a "God is on our side" war, but this is the MAD-like, Tarantino-like death-grip they've got us sucked into.
Somehow Kerry's got to smoke these evil-doers out of their holes and hiding places. And the only way he can do that is to say something true. But the Devil has him by the throat too.
~ U.S.
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
How to Beat Bush
The only way to beat Bush is to bring out in the open what’s really going on, speak truth to power, scare people, and take a stand. Talk about the denial that’s going on. Talk about the history of colonialism and why the grievances of the world are ours to take some responsibility for. Kerry could bury Bush if he said 1/10th what he said 33 years ago.
Otherwise, this election will be decided on the sound rational basis that mostpresidential elections are decided upon: looks. Bush is just looking so goddam good. I think he hurt his knee and hasn't been jogging or something, but he's fatter and cuter than normal. And he's got good, bouncy energy. He's spritely, animated, clear-eyed. I know that he is the human wind sock; I guess is getting blown pretty good.
Laura Bush is the Stepford Wife - so pretty and smart - beyond compare. Uptight though she is, she does look like she likes sex, which is only the second time we've seen that. And the kids made a hit. I know Jen is regarded as a bit of a cow, but I would bet to differ. She drinks and smokes, and sticks out her tongue and dresses kindahot. They both do actually. And her sister makes out in public and does table dances. This is not Amy Carter or Chelsea Clinton. This is my kind of American family and on a behavior level I find myself liking them and trusting them. OK, not really, But, c'mon, the dad's an ex-alkie, the mom still smokes, etc. On the other hand,
Kerry and his wife are just plain weird looking. They look liberal, rich and French. They admit to botox (at least one of them does), and they both often look like they're trying (and failing) to take a crap. And it turns out Kerry's a Jew. Seems his dad never told the kids, but Kerry's grandpa was born and raised Jewish and then converted. Sure explains a lot. And Theresa didn't even add Kerry to her name until this election. Anyway, there's no exuberance there.
I've seen Theresa time and again explain how much pain she's in having to run for 1st lady. That, my fellow Americans, is the recipe for failure. I want to hear how much fun she's having, what a great honor this is, how much she loves all these people she gets to meet, all that wonderful campaign cooing. But she's quite likely too rich, drinks too much red wine, and is too much of a aesthete to realize what she needs to be. Her reluctance is palpable, and a heavy weight on an alreadyweighted-down campaign. I heard her interviewed last month, and they asked her all about her dead husband, and she had the opportunity to say: yeah, he was great, but my new guy, wow. Instead, even when the interviewer tried to bring it back to Kerry, all Theresa wanted to talk about was Heinz.
So while I do understand the advantages to the ball-less strategy of being a complete turd and saying nothing and standing for nothing, I predict it will backfire and result in 4 more years of George W. Bush. But I understand what the risks are. If Kerry speaks out, he would need to risk leading -- with a new vision for America. One that doesn't depend on war and build its country on the backs of others for our privilege. Well, Uncle Sam can dream, can't he?
Otherwise, this election will be decided on the sound rational basis that mostpresidential elections are decided upon: looks. Bush is just looking so goddam good. I think he hurt his knee and hasn't been jogging or something, but he's fatter and cuter than normal. And he's got good, bouncy energy. He's spritely, animated, clear-eyed. I know that he is the human wind sock; I guess is getting blown pretty good.
Laura Bush is the Stepford Wife - so pretty and smart - beyond compare. Uptight though she is, she does look like she likes sex, which is only the second time we've seen that. And the kids made a hit. I know Jen is regarded as a bit of a cow, but I would bet to differ. She drinks and smokes, and sticks out her tongue and dresses kindahot. They both do actually. And her sister makes out in public and does table dances. This is not Amy Carter or Chelsea Clinton. This is my kind of American family and on a behavior level I find myself liking them and trusting them. OK, not really, But, c'mon, the dad's an ex-alkie, the mom still smokes, etc. On the other hand,
Kerry and his wife are just plain weird looking. They look liberal, rich and French. They admit to botox (at least one of them does), and they both often look like they're trying (and failing) to take a crap. And it turns out Kerry's a Jew. Seems his dad never told the kids, but Kerry's grandpa was born and raised Jewish and then converted. Sure explains a lot. And Theresa didn't even add Kerry to her name until this election. Anyway, there's no exuberance there.
I've seen Theresa time and again explain how much pain she's in having to run for 1st lady. That, my fellow Americans, is the recipe for failure. I want to hear how much fun she's having, what a great honor this is, how much she loves all these people she gets to meet, all that wonderful campaign cooing. But she's quite likely too rich, drinks too much red wine, and is too much of a aesthete to realize what she needs to be. Her reluctance is palpable, and a heavy weight on an alreadyweighted-down campaign. I heard her interviewed last month, and they asked her all about her dead husband, and she had the opportunity to say: yeah, he was great, but my new guy, wow. Instead, even when the interviewer tried to bring it back to Kerry, all Theresa wanted to talk about was Heinz.
So while I do understand the advantages to the ball-less strategy of being a complete turd and saying nothing and standing for nothing, I predict it will backfire and result in 4 more years of George W. Bush. But I understand what the risks are. If Kerry speaks out, he would need to risk leading -- with a new vision for America. One that doesn't depend on war and build its country on the backs of others for our privilege. Well, Uncle Sam can dream, can't he?
Sunday, August 15, 2004
I want to not BELIEVE
Well, my good buddy Paul Bunyan is getting as paranoid as your good ole Undle Sam. He wrote me today:
The NYtimes mentioned the claims made here in the very last paragraph of a long article on the "new" "terror" information today. This story appears to be legit, and if it is, it says it all. But which is it? to ask once again. Is Bush motivated purely by political and financial gain?Or does he really have something to hide. Goddamn I'm really starting to believe it. Think of all the pieces together. (yes, I've recently seen the michael moore movie)--The hunt for Osama completely blown, no serious attempt to get him for months, even though they knew approx. where he was, and then he's let to slip away--No attempt to interview Saudis in the U.S., or to speak to Saudi associates of the 9/11 bombers. --Creation of diversion in Iraq, done with puzzling haste, even though, with a little more time many more nations would have joined the effort. --All-out attempt to stall and quash the 9/11 investigation (somehow achieved at no political cost).--Bush's 7 minutes of reading to the school kids on the morning of the thing. The look on his face is stupefaction and fear, but then it often is. What I don't see there is *surprise*.Damn, I have argued with Uncle Sam about this in the past, but I am starting to BELIEVE.--Paul Bunyan
Paul Bunyan agreeing with me sent me into a little rant, as I've been wont to do this election season: Why wouldn’t the world be as evil as we can imagine? Why wouldn’t people want to cut other people up, eat their shit, degrade them, torture them, pull off amazingly heinous capers? If you don’t understand who you are, why you’re here, if you’re cut off, the pain is as great (and has to be as great) as the joy. So that means unbearable pain. So that means anything to foist it. So that means if you’re really lost, and really motivated, why not be Hitler? How close are we to loving Saddam Hussein. It’s easy. Who cares? What is life anyway? Did the people in the Holocaust really suffer? How bad was it? A little fear, a little filth, hard labor, and a nation of people loving it.
The NYtimes mentioned the claims made here in the very last paragraph of a long article on the "new" "terror" information today. This story appears to be legit, and if it is, it says it all. But which is it? to ask once again. Is Bush motivated purely by political and financial gain?Or does he really have something to hide. Goddamn I'm really starting to believe it. Think of all the pieces together. (yes, I've recently seen the michael moore movie)--The hunt for Osama completely blown, no serious attempt to get him for months, even though they knew approx. where he was, and then he's let to slip away--No attempt to interview Saudis in the U.S., or to speak to Saudi associates of the 9/11 bombers. --Creation of diversion in Iraq, done with puzzling haste, even though, with a little more time many more nations would have joined the effort. --All-out attempt to stall and quash the 9/11 investigation (somehow achieved at no political cost).--Bush's 7 minutes of reading to the school kids on the morning of the thing. The look on his face is stupefaction and fear, but then it often is. What I don't see there is *surprise*.Damn, I have argued with Uncle Sam about this in the past, but I am starting to BELIEVE.--Paul Bunyan
Paul Bunyan agreeing with me sent me into a little rant, as I've been wont to do this election season: Why wouldn’t the world be as evil as we can imagine? Why wouldn’t people want to cut other people up, eat their shit, degrade them, torture them, pull off amazingly heinous capers? If you don’t understand who you are, why you’re here, if you’re cut off, the pain is as great (and has to be as great) as the joy. So that means unbearable pain. So that means anything to foist it. So that means if you’re really lost, and really motivated, why not be Hitler? How close are we to loving Saddam Hussein. It’s easy. Who cares? What is life anyway? Did the people in the Holocaust really suffer? How bad was it? A little fear, a little filth, hard labor, and a nation of people loving it.
Thursday, July 29, 2004
Let Them Eat Prozac
Thu Jul 29, 1:50 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A campaign worker for President Bush said on Thursday American workers unhappy with low-quality jobs should find new ones -- or pop a Prozac to make themselves feel better. "Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?" said Susan Sheybani, an assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A campaign worker for President Bush said on Thursday American workers unhappy with low-quality jobs should find new ones -- or pop a Prozac to make themselves feel better. "Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?" said Susan Sheybani, an assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt.
Wednesday, July 07, 2004
Gore Without The Sizzle
I wish Kerry would keep his hands off Edwards, and not joke publicly at crucial times about his hair.
Though I am heartend that a snake oil salesman like Edwards is honored for the normalcy he supposedly brings to the ticket. I thought I heard him say when he stepped to the podium: "I can remove any stain."
Though I am heartend that a snake oil salesman like Edwards is honored for the normalcy he supposedly brings to the ticket. I thought I heard him say when he stepped to the podium: "I can remove any stain."
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
Flashback to 1971
Kissinger in an exchange with the longtime ambassador from the Soviet Union, Anatoly Dobrynin before inviting him to a meeting:
Dobrynin: "I heard that you were sitting with a very nice girl … and I guess I have her picture?"
Kissinger: "Oh, yes?"
Dobrynin: "In the calendar. I think she was on this Playboy calendar."
Kissinger: "Oh, you're a dirty old man."
Dobrynin: "… she's a real nice girl."
Kissinger: "… she's very attractive. I hope she isn't a nice girl."
As reported in Newsweek - May 27, 2004
Dobrynin: "I heard that you were sitting with a very nice girl … and I guess I have her picture?"
Kissinger: "Oh, yes?"
Dobrynin: "In the calendar. I think she was on this Playboy calendar."
Kissinger: "Oh, you're a dirty old man."
Dobrynin: "… she's a real nice girl."
Kissinger: "… she's very attractive. I hope she isn't a nice girl."
As reported in Newsweek - May 27, 2004
Friday, May 07, 2004
Nice Coincidence
"It took me a while to not say 'my husband' meaning John Heinz, cause I'd been married to him for 25 years. Then I switched to thinking my husband John Kerry — and then I thought thank goodness they're both called John." -- Theresa Heinz Kerry
Tuesday, May 04, 2004
My Man
Images of my candidate keep me up at night: The droning, turgid voice. He's begun to do this old man thing with his tongue, kind of foppishly licking his muscle-less lips every few seconds or so. I got so worried I called my good friend Paul Bunyan. This is what he told me:
How lame is Kerry really? There are 2 sides to this. The real question is what Kerry would actually do if elected, but first we have to deal with Kerry as a candidate, and the question of how much of a Gore/Dukakis passive temporizing Asperger's syndrome dweeb he is. The indications so far are not good. It is very confusing to me that he can make the same mistakes as Gore just 4 years later. I guess it's an instinct to lie about little things that is ingrained and uncontrollable. A few months ago he was skiing and reporters saw him fall on the slopes (a secret service guy had blundered into his path). When a nytimes reporter asked him about it, he snapped "I don't fall down." According to the reporter, he then "used an expletive to describe the agent who 'knocked me over.'"The reporter crafted a brutally contemptuous profile of Kerry around this quote, a real assassination job. Here's how it begins:
"John Kerry was in the air, approaching the Continental Divide, and the candidate often ridiculed as straddling both sides of political divides was wrestling with the big matter at hand.
Should he ski, or snowboard? Or maybe both? He gave no clue where he stood. But that was Wednesday night.
A longtime adviser recently suggested that there were two John Kerrys: "indoor John and outdoor John" -- one who agonizes over decisions, and another who acts boldly on them.
It was outdoor John, decidedly so, who emerged from an armored S.U.V. at the foot of Bald Mountain here on Thursday morning, outfitted in blue ski gear and swigging from a bottle of vitamin-fortified water. From the rear of the vehicle he pulled a weathered old snowboard, and for most of the day proceeded to zigzag down what locals affectionately call Mount Baldy." (nytimes 3-19-04)
The guy is being mocked for having a car, for drinking water, and for being able to both snowboard and ski, and the entire piece is like that, going on to mix in a few mentions of his supposedly embarassing flip-flops on policy along with the gratuitous ridicule. The question is how much of this is Kerry's fault, or to put it another way--is there anybody as good or better than he (president-wise) who would fare any better (candidate-wise)? If he really did profanely insult the bodyguard, then he really is autistic and it's going to catch up with him this summer in some hideous way, but the incident is uncorroborated and comes from a reporter who clearly holds a venomous hatred for him, so I'm suspending belief on that. But it doesn't really matter what exactly happened because, either way, Kerry has somehow managed to make one of the key campaign reporters loathe him on a visceral level. Inspiring the hatred of reporters is exactly what Gore did, while Bush seduced them like Phineas the cool boarding school jock (A Separate Peace reference). Most reporters hated Bush's ideas, but it was easy for them to forget about that because he never talked--or probably even thought--about anything of substance. He was just was fun, while Gore was a bore and a scold. Clinton was (almost) as much of a hairsplitting, risk-averse, fence-straddler as Gore and Kerry, but he dazzled the press corps, and got away with it. Now of course Bush has the press corps trained like dogs. There was a question today in his minute and a half "press conference" after his testimony before the 9/11 commission that went in effect like this: "Mr. President, some of your critics--and I know they are desperate and insane--have suggested that you have insisted on giving your testimony in concert with Mr. Cheney in order to--forgive me Mr. President--in order to "get your stories straight," and also because, as these obviously crazy people might say, you are incapable of answering the commission's questions without his assisstance. Please forgive me for I only ask this question to give you an opportunity to put an end to this treasonous madness." (find a transcript and I think you will find my paraphrase captures the basic character of the question.) Bush's answer was something to see--he never even remotely adressed the question (by the way, how can somebody who only speaks in scripted talking points spend so much time fumbling for words?). There was no follow-up (to see a follow-up question from the press, try the BBC or, in this country, travel backward in time). But Jesus Christ, couldn't Kerry grab some press by saying something or other? People like us have been saying this a lot lately. And it's pretty much inexplicable because there's so much to say. Four years ago we were complaining in the same way about Gore, but it was kind of abstraction--say something, anything, please. But right now the stuff to talk about is sitting right there staring everybody in the world in the face, a mountain of lies, failure, and corruption. Bush lied about the WMD (and that's why I, Kerry, voted for the war authorization). He is lying about being focussed on terrorism prior to 9-11-01, and in fact ramped down Clinton's anti-terror protocols. He was on vacation while Osama's people planned the attacks, and ignored all warnings in August '01. He threw out all the people trying to plan for post-war Iraq, and what is happening there now is a direct consequence of his ideological blindness and incompetence. He lied about a thousand small things from the Baghdad thanksgiving turkey, to the "mission accomplished" backdrop, to the fake Christmas poem. Plus the Halliburton and Enron scandals, the Hitlerian madness of Guantanomo bay and the Yee debacle, theft from the 9/11 fund, rolling over on Pakistan and N. Korean nukes, and getting played by the Saudis. Sorry for reiterating this stuff, so I won't mention the environmental policy giveaways to the enregy companies and Total Information Awareness. How can Kerry give a speech, anywhere at any time that doesn't include the phrase Total Information Awareness? I mean they gave this stuff to him.Okay, whatever, let's say he gets elected, which stilll could happen despite his best efforts because the sock monkey president is not Reagan, he really is an uncomfortable and idiotic figure.Well, I think people get their hopes too high. Was Adlai Stevenson or Eugene McCarthy or McGovern or Ralph Nader ever president? What do you want from a president? What are you angry about that Clinton signed while dealing with republican majorities?All I want is a president who is not an insane person. Is that too much to ask? I really don't care that much about politics--except when Hitler tries to come to power, which is what is happening now. There is nothing cynical about "anybody but Bush." This isn't some kind of sell-out or lack of principle. We want to just get back to normal, where an arrested person has right to council and to state his case--unlike that poor bastard Padilla--and America doesn't start "preemptive" wars.I don't care if Kerry is FDR or LBJ or WJC or something lesser. He won't be able to do anything anyway, given that at least the house will be against him. We just need a president who is not thinking about some confused vision of the 1000-year Reich combined with the Rapture so that we can go back to doing whatever it is we do.
How lame is Kerry really? There are 2 sides to this. The real question is what Kerry would actually do if elected, but first we have to deal with Kerry as a candidate, and the question of how much of a Gore/Dukakis passive temporizing Asperger's syndrome dweeb he is. The indications so far are not good. It is very confusing to me that he can make the same mistakes as Gore just 4 years later. I guess it's an instinct to lie about little things that is ingrained and uncontrollable. A few months ago he was skiing and reporters saw him fall on the slopes (a secret service guy had blundered into his path). When a nytimes reporter asked him about it, he snapped "I don't fall down." According to the reporter, he then "used an expletive to describe the agent who 'knocked me over.'"The reporter crafted a brutally contemptuous profile of Kerry around this quote, a real assassination job. Here's how it begins:
"John Kerry was in the air, approaching the Continental Divide, and the candidate often ridiculed as straddling both sides of political divides was wrestling with the big matter at hand.
Should he ski, or snowboard? Or maybe both? He gave no clue where he stood. But that was Wednesday night.
A longtime adviser recently suggested that there were two John Kerrys: "indoor John and outdoor John" -- one who agonizes over decisions, and another who acts boldly on them.
It was outdoor John, decidedly so, who emerged from an armored S.U.V. at the foot of Bald Mountain here on Thursday morning, outfitted in blue ski gear and swigging from a bottle of vitamin-fortified water. From the rear of the vehicle he pulled a weathered old snowboard, and for most of the day proceeded to zigzag down what locals affectionately call Mount Baldy." (nytimes 3-19-04)
The guy is being mocked for having a car, for drinking water, and for being able to both snowboard and ski, and the entire piece is like that, going on to mix in a few mentions of his supposedly embarassing flip-flops on policy along with the gratuitous ridicule. The question is how much of this is Kerry's fault, or to put it another way--is there anybody as good or better than he (president-wise) who would fare any better (candidate-wise)? If he really did profanely insult the bodyguard, then he really is autistic and it's going to catch up with him this summer in some hideous way, but the incident is uncorroborated and comes from a reporter who clearly holds a venomous hatred for him, so I'm suspending belief on that. But it doesn't really matter what exactly happened because, either way, Kerry has somehow managed to make one of the key campaign reporters loathe him on a visceral level. Inspiring the hatred of reporters is exactly what Gore did, while Bush seduced them like Phineas the cool boarding school jock (A Separate Peace reference). Most reporters hated Bush's ideas, but it was easy for them to forget about that because he never talked--or probably even thought--about anything of substance. He was just was fun, while Gore was a bore and a scold. Clinton was (almost) as much of a hairsplitting, risk-averse, fence-straddler as Gore and Kerry, but he dazzled the press corps, and got away with it. Now of course Bush has the press corps trained like dogs. There was a question today in his minute and a half "press conference" after his testimony before the 9/11 commission that went in effect like this: "Mr. President, some of your critics--and I know they are desperate and insane--have suggested that you have insisted on giving your testimony in concert with Mr. Cheney in order to--forgive me Mr. President--in order to "get your stories straight," and also because, as these obviously crazy people might say, you are incapable of answering the commission's questions without his assisstance. Please forgive me for I only ask this question to give you an opportunity to put an end to this treasonous madness." (find a transcript and I think you will find my paraphrase captures the basic character of the question.) Bush's answer was something to see--he never even remotely adressed the question (by the way, how can somebody who only speaks in scripted talking points spend so much time fumbling for words?). There was no follow-up (to see a follow-up question from the press, try the BBC or, in this country, travel backward in time). But Jesus Christ, couldn't Kerry grab some press by saying something or other? People like us have been saying this a lot lately. And it's pretty much inexplicable because there's so much to say. Four years ago we were complaining in the same way about Gore, but it was kind of abstraction--say something, anything, please. But right now the stuff to talk about is sitting right there staring everybody in the world in the face, a mountain of lies, failure, and corruption. Bush lied about the WMD (and that's why I, Kerry, voted for the war authorization). He is lying about being focussed on terrorism prior to 9-11-01, and in fact ramped down Clinton's anti-terror protocols. He was on vacation while Osama's people planned the attacks, and ignored all warnings in August '01. He threw out all the people trying to plan for post-war Iraq, and what is happening there now is a direct consequence of his ideological blindness and incompetence. He lied about a thousand small things from the Baghdad thanksgiving turkey, to the "mission accomplished" backdrop, to the fake Christmas poem. Plus the Halliburton and Enron scandals, the Hitlerian madness of Guantanomo bay and the Yee debacle, theft from the 9/11 fund, rolling over on Pakistan and N. Korean nukes, and getting played by the Saudis. Sorry for reiterating this stuff, so I won't mention the environmental policy giveaways to the enregy companies and Total Information Awareness. How can Kerry give a speech, anywhere at any time that doesn't include the phrase Total Information Awareness? I mean they gave this stuff to him.Okay, whatever, let's say he gets elected, which stilll could happen despite his best efforts because the sock monkey president is not Reagan, he really is an uncomfortable and idiotic figure.Well, I think people get their hopes too high. Was Adlai Stevenson or Eugene McCarthy or McGovern or Ralph Nader ever president? What do you want from a president? What are you angry about that Clinton signed while dealing with republican majorities?All I want is a president who is not an insane person. Is that too much to ask? I really don't care that much about politics--except when Hitler tries to come to power, which is what is happening now. There is nothing cynical about "anybody but Bush." This isn't some kind of sell-out or lack of principle. We want to just get back to normal, where an arrested person has right to council and to state his case--unlike that poor bastard Padilla--and America doesn't start "preemptive" wars.I don't care if Kerry is FDR or LBJ or WJC or something lesser. He won't be able to do anything anyway, given that at least the house will be against him. We just need a president who is not thinking about some confused vision of the 1000-year Reich combined with the Rapture so that we can go back to doing whatever it is we do.
Sunday, May 02, 2004
Uncle Sam Agrees
"Nobody likes to see dead people on their television screens"--GW Bush
And that is why I am having a hard time watching John Kerry.
The hand gestures. Jeez, that alone.
The turns of phrase. How many times can you hear: “and I tell you this…and I say this…”?
Then there’s all this recent questionable stuff:
The SUV claim
The $1,000 haircut
The medals stuff
The botoxy looks-like-hell un-American wife. I don’t know what drugs she’s been doing most of her life, but she has lived pretty hard. She ain’t no Laura Bush.
But the real critique is that he won’t say:
George Bush represents a cabal of powerful moneyed interests that had long-planned to invade Iraq. Whether or not he knew more than he’s telling us, or should have known more than he did, about 9-11, he used it to pursue a policy that was already in place, and that he had not been honest with the American people about. And, due to his and his team’s arrogance, he failed to appreciate how crucial an international coalition was to success. Or worse, he was so greedy about making sure all the spoils that came from controlling the region would benefit his friends that he, accidentally or on purpose, failed to acknowledge what was required to be successful. The threat represented by 9-11 is not something the US can militarize our way out of. Terrorism comes from the hearts and minds of people who feel sufficiently mistreated that they see it as the only option. When 9-11 happened, we had the world on our side. Indeed, the US never had the sympathies and support of the world as we did after that incident. And yet, in only 2 and a half years, we have sufficiently alienated the world to the point that we have never been so hated, or so unsafe from terrorism. I don’t know if George Bush is evil, or an idiot, but he is bad for America, and we have got to elect somebody else President in 7 months. I will…
Anyways, that’s kind of what Dean was saying, what Kucinich and Brown and Sharpton of course said, what Lieberman, Gore, Gephardt and Edwards would never say, and what would need to be said to win. But it will never be said, and therefore we will not win.
~ Axil
And that is why I am having a hard time watching John Kerry.
The hand gestures. Jeez, that alone.
The turns of phrase. How many times can you hear: “and I tell you this…and I say this…”?
Then there’s all this recent questionable stuff:
The SUV claim
The $1,000 haircut
The medals stuff
The botoxy looks-like-hell un-American wife. I don’t know what drugs she’s been doing most of her life, but she has lived pretty hard. She ain’t no Laura Bush.
But the real critique is that he won’t say:
George Bush represents a cabal of powerful moneyed interests that had long-planned to invade Iraq. Whether or not he knew more than he’s telling us, or should have known more than he did, about 9-11, he used it to pursue a policy that was already in place, and that he had not been honest with the American people about. And, due to his and his team’s arrogance, he failed to appreciate how crucial an international coalition was to success. Or worse, he was so greedy about making sure all the spoils that came from controlling the region would benefit his friends that he, accidentally or on purpose, failed to acknowledge what was required to be successful. The threat represented by 9-11 is not something the US can militarize our way out of. Terrorism comes from the hearts and minds of people who feel sufficiently mistreated that they see it as the only option. When 9-11 happened, we had the world on our side. Indeed, the US never had the sympathies and support of the world as we did after that incident. And yet, in only 2 and a half years, we have sufficiently alienated the world to the point that we have never been so hated, or so unsafe from terrorism. I don’t know if George Bush is evil, or an idiot, but he is bad for America, and we have got to elect somebody else President in 7 months. I will…
Anyways, that’s kind of what Dean was saying, what Kucinich and Brown and Sharpton of course said, what Lieberman, Gore, Gephardt and Edwards would never say, and what would need to be said to win. But it will never be said, and therefore we will not win.
~ Axil
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
War is Peace
My good buddy Paul Bunyan wrote me today. Here's what he said:
The president has entirely ceded his presidency to his campaign manager and PR people. Bush may be the first president in history who governs without personally holding any ideal whatsoever other than the desire to be elected a second time. Unfortunately, the brand identity that this guy's advisors have chosen for him is as the Avatar of Christian Vengeance. Somewhere pretty early in the planning of the ad campaign, somebody figured out that a product of this type would have an immense advantage over its competitors so long as both were positioned in a context of global war. They worked it out and it was as pretty as can be. As long as war continues, and American soldiers are at risk, the moo-cow people will feel a vague, primal disturbance, and will huddle around their leader. The effect is stronger if the soldiers are winning, but it is still pretty strong even if they are losing, and with Vietnam it took more than 8 years before people got tired of being patriotic for something that was almost as stupid as the Iraq war. But Karl Rove had also learned a lesson from the first gulf war. Bush's dad had gone to war in the Middle East almost 2 years before the election, and he made the mistake (the political mistake, as we know in retrospect) of prosecuting his war with almost perfect success. He did this by leaving the war-planning up to the military, who put together what was probably the most perfectly realized execution of a "combined arms" military plan in the history of the world, and utterly destroyed or demoralized their opponent in a matter of days. The Nazis (who invented this style of warfare, which they called "blitzkrieg," would have been proud). Like younger George, older George enjoyed 80% approval ratings for many months. But unlike younger George, older George was no longer at war when election season rolled around.You know, Bush's war begins to make sense if you look at it that way. The dismissal of Jay Garner for Paul Bremer. The exclusion of the military intelligence study-group who wrote the briefing on post-war Iraq (I have the details on this somewhere. The head of it has talked to the press. Their paper, which predicted pretty much every nasty thing that has happened in Iraq that has come as a "surprise," was excluded from CPA briefings and the personnel were all rejected for Iraq duty, despite their special knowledge). The refusal to guard cultural treasures, to police the cities, to talk to the people. The attack on Fallujah. I couldn't figure it out--are they evil or stupid?The answer is they're evil, but in this special way. It's not, as I imagined (I couldn't think of anything else) that they are trying to bring the world to destruction to hasten the coming of Jesus. It's something much more simple, believable and clearly motivated. And there is no need for any sort of widespread conspiracy. They (Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld) want to get reelected, and so they want the war to drag on for a while--they can't afford to succeed. And so they have decided to do everything in a manner opposite to whatever their military people advise. If the generals say we need more troops, we bring in less. If they say we need another week of mobilization before starting the war, we go in a week early and our supply lines are shot to hell. If they have a program for winning the "hearts and minds" of the populace, we make sure that is not implemented. But politically, it works. There is no downside, short-term. It's a win-win. It really seems insurmountable, thus the panic at the village voice. But here's the possible hope. Everything that took 8 years in the 1960s takes 1 year now. The people are more brainwashed than ever, but they are also more malleable than ever--It's not a brainwashing that runs deep. And they have also never encountered this level of incompetence and lies, and some of it will leak through.
# # #
I indeed I agreed with Paul. For to be so low as to be below the requirement to expose this is very low indeed. It’s a frightening concept to contemplate how deeply one must need to draw on the powers of banality to consistently squish oneself so as to remain always below this requirement. Even the slightest slip of the tongue towards reality or honesty would raise the profile of the challenger to visibility, and sheer visibility, any visibility, would shatter the falsity of the Antichrist (President). But Kerry cannot do it, or, rather, the demon driving the earth towards its seemingly certain destruction is so firmly in charge that the slippery droolings constantly emanating from his mouth - the only man in a position to replace the devil - grease his already forlorn carcass with the musky elusiveness of all the losers that have led up to him. It’s a kind of willful lying, a disease of the democrats, a need for daddy that is so sad, so sick in its lack of conviction and understanding of pride, so the same in Mondale and Muskie and Dukakis and Hart and Gore, that we are due for being treated to its burnt butterscotch sweetness one more time. I want to believe, but I can't make stone soup again.
The president has entirely ceded his presidency to his campaign manager and PR people. Bush may be the first president in history who governs without personally holding any ideal whatsoever other than the desire to be elected a second time. Unfortunately, the brand identity that this guy's advisors have chosen for him is as the Avatar of Christian Vengeance. Somewhere pretty early in the planning of the ad campaign, somebody figured out that a product of this type would have an immense advantage over its competitors so long as both were positioned in a context of global war. They worked it out and it was as pretty as can be. As long as war continues, and American soldiers are at risk, the moo-cow people will feel a vague, primal disturbance, and will huddle around their leader. The effect is stronger if the soldiers are winning, but it is still pretty strong even if they are losing, and with Vietnam it took more than 8 years before people got tired of being patriotic for something that was almost as stupid as the Iraq war. But Karl Rove had also learned a lesson from the first gulf war. Bush's dad had gone to war in the Middle East almost 2 years before the election, and he made the mistake (the political mistake, as we know in retrospect) of prosecuting his war with almost perfect success. He did this by leaving the war-planning up to the military, who put together what was probably the most perfectly realized execution of a "combined arms" military plan in the history of the world, and utterly destroyed or demoralized their opponent in a matter of days. The Nazis (who invented this style of warfare, which they called "blitzkrieg," would have been proud). Like younger George, older George enjoyed 80% approval ratings for many months. But unlike younger George, older George was no longer at war when election season rolled around.You know, Bush's war begins to make sense if you look at it that way. The dismissal of Jay Garner for Paul Bremer. The exclusion of the military intelligence study-group who wrote the briefing on post-war Iraq (I have the details on this somewhere. The head of it has talked to the press. Their paper, which predicted pretty much every nasty thing that has happened in Iraq that has come as a "surprise," was excluded from CPA briefings and the personnel were all rejected for Iraq duty, despite their special knowledge). The refusal to guard cultural treasures, to police the cities, to talk to the people. The attack on Fallujah. I couldn't figure it out--are they evil or stupid?The answer is they're evil, but in this special way. It's not, as I imagined (I couldn't think of anything else) that they are trying to bring the world to destruction to hasten the coming of Jesus. It's something much more simple, believable and clearly motivated. And there is no need for any sort of widespread conspiracy. They (Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld) want to get reelected, and so they want the war to drag on for a while--they can't afford to succeed. And so they have decided to do everything in a manner opposite to whatever their military people advise. If the generals say we need more troops, we bring in less. If they say we need another week of mobilization before starting the war, we go in a week early and our supply lines are shot to hell. If they have a program for winning the "hearts and minds" of the populace, we make sure that is not implemented. But politically, it works. There is no downside, short-term. It's a win-win. It really seems insurmountable, thus the panic at the village voice. But here's the possible hope. Everything that took 8 years in the 1960s takes 1 year now. The people are more brainwashed than ever, but they are also more malleable than ever--It's not a brainwashing that runs deep. And they have also never encountered this level of incompetence and lies, and some of it will leak through.
# # #
I indeed I agreed with Paul. For to be so low as to be below the requirement to expose this is very low indeed. It’s a frightening concept to contemplate how deeply one must need to draw on the powers of banality to consistently squish oneself so as to remain always below this requirement. Even the slightest slip of the tongue towards reality or honesty would raise the profile of the challenger to visibility, and sheer visibility, any visibility, would shatter the falsity of the Antichrist (President). But Kerry cannot do it, or, rather, the demon driving the earth towards its seemingly certain destruction is so firmly in charge that the slippery droolings constantly emanating from his mouth - the only man in a position to replace the devil - grease his already forlorn carcass with the musky elusiveness of all the losers that have led up to him. It’s a kind of willful lying, a disease of the democrats, a need for daddy that is so sad, so sick in its lack of conviction and understanding of pride, so the same in Mondale and Muskie and Dukakis and Hart and Gore, that we are due for being treated to its burnt butterscotch sweetness one more time. I want to believe, but I can't make stone soup again.
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
The Dean Scream
So people (yeah, mostly the media but now people too) are saying Howard Dean melted down. Maybe so. Here's what it sounded like: http://www.drudgereportarchives.com/data/2004/01/20/20040120_060803_dean.mp3.
But how bad is that? Anyways, it got twisted into headlines like: DISASTER FOR DEAN IN IOWA - NY Post, or: Dean Goes Nuts - Drudge Report. I agree that this is bad. But is it Muskie crying in the snow about his wife? Hart with a blonde in a mini-skirt on his lap? Dukakis in a tank? No way!
What I think (or wish) is that he had the balls to spin it the other way, and say: "You know, we need somebody willing to be a real human being…" and do a whole hoe down, shindig, battle cry thing with it. Co-opt the "I'm mad as hell..." contengent. But given that this year only a military man can win, I'm afraid this Angry Clinton doesn’t stand a chance. Re his gutterance and the crowd he delivered it to, he said: “I thought they deserved everything I could give them." That’s lame. And the next day, a newly quieted-down Dean said:"Those of you who came here intending to be lifted to your feet by a lot of red-meat rhetoric will be a little disappointed," he told supporters. That’s really lame. It's playing to the negative.
He’s so similar to George Bush in this weird way of being nasty. He lots of times says to the press: “I’m not going to play that game” He chastises the press the same way George does. He don’t get it. We want LOVE! We want that nice, warm, kindly Reagan/Clinton thing. Especially now that we're back to being scared. That's what can beat George. But mainly, this is the time to be super cool, for the blue flame cool-medium. I hope he can do it.
But what can Howard Dean do to recover from this debacle? What I would do is a Checkers-like big media play, while everybody's still paying attention. I think it's his last chance. I would buy a half-hour of national TV time and give a speech about what the heck happened. What speech, you ask?
This one:"My fellow Americans. I'm Howard Dean, and I've chosen this unique way to come before you because America is in deep trouble, and now I'm in deep trouble. I decided to just stop, and deal with this issue right now, take back control of the situation, and reframe the debate about what's really at stake.There are so many special interests taking over this country, we're losing our country. The idea that a real person, a Doctor no less, could run for President against all the giant corporations and big money and special interests and corrupt lobbyists that run our society and our government, and get as far as I have, is really unbelievable. In a way, I don't believe it. If you're watching me right now, it's because you believe, like I do, that we're about to go off the rails here.
The terror isn't terrorism, it's the way we're dealing with it that's terrifying. We're bullying the world, and at home we're bullied by smaller and smaller concentrations of ever-more powerful interests that don't have our interests at heart. What we need is a real human being with a brain and a heart and the strength and the will to get out there and speak the truth. Without tons of handlers, without a marketing committee that decides what dog food the people will eat-- the classic American individual, willing to take on the system. But let me tell you, because now I'm learning it, there's a lot of risks when you freestyle. We were the front runner, but now it’s a new ballgame.
We have to regroup, rethink, and redeploy. Let me then, after these very first election results for the 2004 Presidency, explain why I fell 12 points in 6 days and came in third in Iowa. There are a lot of powerful and entrenched interests in this country, and they come from the left as well as the right. I, however, come from me. And we haven’t had a president that’s just been a person since, well, probably Harry Truman. I speak not just for the common man, I speak for everyman and everywoman. To turn a phrase, I am the silent majority, and I made it on individuals realizing they are in that majority and want it to take back this country.
I really don't have any powerful lobbyists backing me. I have a lot of little people like me who see themselves in me and want me to make it. Maybe you thought you were one of them. I'd like to convince you you still are. Now, let's face it. The fact that I call it as I see it, and the fact that I want to take this country back, _is_ a little scary to people. But they can’t say: Gee, this guy is scary because he speaks the truth in an unabashed way, doesn’t have any powerful interests to serve, and would really clean house if he got in office. Now, they can say: this guy is scary because he’s …oooh!....angry! Well, let’s just address this head on. Yes, of course I’m angry.
I’m angry that we waste so many of our precious resources, that we squander our wealth on the military and bloated pork-barrel business deals and corrupt politicians. I’m angry that we haven’t lived up to the America that I know we can be. That we are being hoodwinked and led down the garden path to a totally non-sustainable vision of the USA. I am so angry that our children our dying, that we’re destroying our environment, that our poor are getting poorer, that people don’t seem to care, that the media doesn’t seem to be helping, that people are losing control of their lives.
But hey, people, don’t forget: I decided _not_ to get mad. I decided to get even. I decided to do something about it. I decided to actually run for President of the United States. Me! Just a guy. Right here before you. Running for President. How ironic that the Bushies as well as some of my fellow Democrats are calling me angry, as if I would do some bone headed thing like let my anger get the best of me by, um…let’s see…, invading Iraq? Now that’s the unthinking act of an angry man. I may express myself using words that are emphatic, yes.
But I know the difference between raising my voice and raising the terror alert to orange as a way to scare the American people. So I make no apologies for my anger, for my emphatic style, for jumping up and down or acting like a football coach or what have you. This isn't France or Germany or England. This is America. And America is not exactly an all upper crust polite society. We cheer here! We accept all kinds here. Especially just plain folks who ride in pickup trucks, go to Football Games, and yell and cheer. Heck, we invented cheerleading in this country. I'm proud of it. I may do it again. I like getting fired up. I like caring. I am me.
It’s amazing I’ve gotten as far as I have by being me. And my value proposition to the American people is this: if you elect me, you will have, for the first time in 50 years, with all due respect to every president during that time, a real guy running the country. Like I said: Just some guy. If you'll take me back into your hearts, I'll be the first Doctor to run the country. That's right: I chose to be a doctor, because I love people. I want to heal people. And now I want to heal this country.
We all know it: America is going insane, and it's time for there to be a doctor in the house. America, I'm a doctor, and I'm here to help you get better. I am tapping in to, as I said earlier, what I think is the great silent majority of Americans who are neither this nor that, but just plain folks that have had it up to here with lies and bureaucracy and being manipulated and being put on hold for longer and longer as corporations rack up higher and higher profits. I will be a president that is not a part of that system.
I love these other guys I'm running against, but they are all tangled up in it. With me, what you see is what you get. So no wonder they’re all trying to stop me. Honestly, they are all taking shots at me, from all sides. And well they should. Cuz if I win, if you put me in office, I will blow their minds. I will show that when you cut out the fat, when you clear out the deadwood, when you fire the criminals, when all you care about is getting things done for the American people, without paying off some contemptable group of greedheads that bankrolled you in the first place, we can work about half as hard and still get the same results.
We don’t have to work like mad. We don’t have to be killing ourselves. It's not healthy. We can have a vacation. We can have a life. We can have our families back. We can have our safety back. We can have America back. It just takes a little honesty emanating from the top. And that, my friends, is just about all I’ve got to offer. Thank You, God Bless You, and God Bless America."
But how bad is that? Anyways, it got twisted into headlines like: DISASTER FOR DEAN IN IOWA - NY Post, or: Dean Goes Nuts - Drudge Report. I agree that this is bad. But is it Muskie crying in the snow about his wife? Hart with a blonde in a mini-skirt on his lap? Dukakis in a tank? No way!
What I think (or wish) is that he had the balls to spin it the other way, and say: "You know, we need somebody willing to be a real human being…" and do a whole hoe down, shindig, battle cry thing with it. Co-opt the "I'm mad as hell..." contengent. But given that this year only a military man can win, I'm afraid this Angry Clinton doesn’t stand a chance. Re his gutterance and the crowd he delivered it to, he said: “I thought they deserved everything I could give them." That’s lame. And the next day, a newly quieted-down Dean said:"Those of you who came here intending to be lifted to your feet by a lot of red-meat rhetoric will be a little disappointed," he told supporters. That’s really lame. It's playing to the negative.
He’s so similar to George Bush in this weird way of being nasty. He lots of times says to the press: “I’m not going to play that game” He chastises the press the same way George does. He don’t get it. We want LOVE! We want that nice, warm, kindly Reagan/Clinton thing. Especially now that we're back to being scared. That's what can beat George. But mainly, this is the time to be super cool, for the blue flame cool-medium. I hope he can do it.
But what can Howard Dean do to recover from this debacle? What I would do is a Checkers-like big media play, while everybody's still paying attention. I think it's his last chance. I would buy a half-hour of national TV time and give a speech about what the heck happened. What speech, you ask?
This one:"My fellow Americans. I'm Howard Dean, and I've chosen this unique way to come before you because America is in deep trouble, and now I'm in deep trouble. I decided to just stop, and deal with this issue right now, take back control of the situation, and reframe the debate about what's really at stake.There are so many special interests taking over this country, we're losing our country. The idea that a real person, a Doctor no less, could run for President against all the giant corporations and big money and special interests and corrupt lobbyists that run our society and our government, and get as far as I have, is really unbelievable. In a way, I don't believe it. If you're watching me right now, it's because you believe, like I do, that we're about to go off the rails here.
The terror isn't terrorism, it's the way we're dealing with it that's terrifying. We're bullying the world, and at home we're bullied by smaller and smaller concentrations of ever-more powerful interests that don't have our interests at heart. What we need is a real human being with a brain and a heart and the strength and the will to get out there and speak the truth. Without tons of handlers, without a marketing committee that decides what dog food the people will eat-- the classic American individual, willing to take on the system. But let me tell you, because now I'm learning it, there's a lot of risks when you freestyle. We were the front runner, but now it’s a new ballgame.
We have to regroup, rethink, and redeploy. Let me then, after these very first election results for the 2004 Presidency, explain why I fell 12 points in 6 days and came in third in Iowa. There are a lot of powerful and entrenched interests in this country, and they come from the left as well as the right. I, however, come from me. And we haven’t had a president that’s just been a person since, well, probably Harry Truman. I speak not just for the common man, I speak for everyman and everywoman. To turn a phrase, I am the silent majority, and I made it on individuals realizing they are in that majority and want it to take back this country.
I really don't have any powerful lobbyists backing me. I have a lot of little people like me who see themselves in me and want me to make it. Maybe you thought you were one of them. I'd like to convince you you still are. Now, let's face it. The fact that I call it as I see it, and the fact that I want to take this country back, _is_ a little scary to people. But they can’t say: Gee, this guy is scary because he speaks the truth in an unabashed way, doesn’t have any powerful interests to serve, and would really clean house if he got in office. Now, they can say: this guy is scary because he’s …oooh!....angry! Well, let’s just address this head on. Yes, of course I’m angry.
I’m angry that we waste so many of our precious resources, that we squander our wealth on the military and bloated pork-barrel business deals and corrupt politicians. I’m angry that we haven’t lived up to the America that I know we can be. That we are being hoodwinked and led down the garden path to a totally non-sustainable vision of the USA. I am so angry that our children our dying, that we’re destroying our environment, that our poor are getting poorer, that people don’t seem to care, that the media doesn’t seem to be helping, that people are losing control of their lives.
But hey, people, don’t forget: I decided _not_ to get mad. I decided to get even. I decided to do something about it. I decided to actually run for President of the United States. Me! Just a guy. Right here before you. Running for President. How ironic that the Bushies as well as some of my fellow Democrats are calling me angry, as if I would do some bone headed thing like let my anger get the best of me by, um…let’s see…, invading Iraq? Now that’s the unthinking act of an angry man. I may express myself using words that are emphatic, yes.
But I know the difference between raising my voice and raising the terror alert to orange as a way to scare the American people. So I make no apologies for my anger, for my emphatic style, for jumping up and down or acting like a football coach or what have you. This isn't France or Germany or England. This is America. And America is not exactly an all upper crust polite society. We cheer here! We accept all kinds here. Especially just plain folks who ride in pickup trucks, go to Football Games, and yell and cheer. Heck, we invented cheerleading in this country. I'm proud of it. I may do it again. I like getting fired up. I like caring. I am me.
It’s amazing I’ve gotten as far as I have by being me. And my value proposition to the American people is this: if you elect me, you will have, for the first time in 50 years, with all due respect to every president during that time, a real guy running the country. Like I said: Just some guy. If you'll take me back into your hearts, I'll be the first Doctor to run the country. That's right: I chose to be a doctor, because I love people. I want to heal people. And now I want to heal this country.
We all know it: America is going insane, and it's time for there to be a doctor in the house. America, I'm a doctor, and I'm here to help you get better. I am tapping in to, as I said earlier, what I think is the great silent majority of Americans who are neither this nor that, but just plain folks that have had it up to here with lies and bureaucracy and being manipulated and being put on hold for longer and longer as corporations rack up higher and higher profits. I will be a president that is not a part of that system.
I love these other guys I'm running against, but they are all tangled up in it. With me, what you see is what you get. So no wonder they’re all trying to stop me. Honestly, they are all taking shots at me, from all sides. And well they should. Cuz if I win, if you put me in office, I will blow their minds. I will show that when you cut out the fat, when you clear out the deadwood, when you fire the criminals, when all you care about is getting things done for the American people, without paying off some contemptable group of greedheads that bankrolled you in the first place, we can work about half as hard and still get the same results.
We don’t have to work like mad. We don’t have to be killing ourselves. It's not healthy. We can have a vacation. We can have a life. We can have our families back. We can have our safety back. We can have America back. It just takes a little honesty emanating from the top. And that, my friends, is just about all I’ve got to offer. Thank You, God Bless You, and God Bless America."
Sunday, January 11, 2004
Email between Uncle Sam & Paul Bunyan
On the 9th of January, Presidential Candidate Clark declared that if he were President 9/11 would never have happened and if he wins this election, another 9/11 will not happen. He guaranteed it.
Here's one of the stories: http://www.detnews.com/2004/politics/0401/11/politics-31662.htm.
It was really something, and when I shared the general's claims with my good friend Paul Bunyan, he became incensed at the irresponsibility of the quote. I wrote him and asked: What do you think?
Starting directly below is what he wrote back to me, and then me to him, on down to our conclusions about what taking a position such as this might mean. So unlike normal email threads, this one is stacked so you can read it top to bottom.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Paul Bunyan
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 2:17 PM
To: Uncle Sam
Subject: Re: FW: pull over buddy
I am so sad, so angry, so disappointed...so really, really alarmed... by the stupidity of these guys who want to pretend to run this country. It's weird that almost everyone seems to agree that the way to win an election to speak completely irresponsibly.
Not only is guaranteeing security either total bullshit or a promise of a police state (and even then still bullshit), but it's also just a really bad thing to say, a bad thread to launch, a bad meme to propogate. ANd not only that, it's more of this kind of shit that all the Dems are doing that may or may help them win a few primary votes, but which completely distorts and trashes the political discourse of the party as a whole, and hurts everbody's chances in the general elec.
--Paul Bunyan
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Yeah the clark thing is so weird. I have a buddy who is working for him. Clark is COOL in the “cool media” -- you have to be this way -- sort of way. He’s a Modern TV Guy. A CNN guy. And from my media studies, those are the folks who can win. The question for me is the degree to which he’s a person of conviction, of caring, of his own mind. He’s a little too cute alright, and maybe up against George that would stand out more.However.I love the quote. Insofar as words are what they are, which is a simulacrum of what is truly possible, I like what he said. They can’t hurt us. I’ve been wanting somebody to say this for a long time. In the language of what passes for American politics, it’s fucking awesome. He’s just saying no. Do you kind of see my angle?~ Uncle Sam
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At 07:54 PM 1/9/2004, Paul Bunyan wrote:
Not any. 1) You can't ever say this can't happen. 2) To say 9/11 was Bush's fault is to criticize him for the wrong things. Even if Bush did the thing (which is not true), or even passively allowed it for political reasons (still not true but at least possible), it's the wrong thing to criticize him for. What clark is essentially saying is I would have been more facist than he. WHich is the wrong way to go.
The democratic thing is as you said, is about, we make happen more money, more sex, more happiness. The victory path is not to say, yeah I could beat those evildoers better. Its to say, we didn't have these evildoers at all when we were president. let's get back to living good life and stop focusing on all this negative shit. I think every time we go to orange alert or some fucking embarassing ridiculous shit like that and nothing happens, 500,00 votes shift over to the dem side. Only thing is, one more terrorist attack on U.S. soil under any conditions and 5 million votes shift over the other way.
Clark can say it doesn't matter, he can say we will conquer it by other means, he can say it's bushes fault even, but he can't say I can prevent such things. It's just not true and it's a false hope and phony and riding for a fall. A football team can guarantee a victory, but no one can guarantee "security" which does not exist.
--Paul Bunyan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Paul Bunyan
Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2004
9:54 PM
To: Uncle Sam
Subject: RE: FW: pull over buddy/incompetence fear and love
Uncle Sam wrote: I may be in the minority, but I can’t discount that Bush & Co. ignored certain information for political reasons. You really don’t believe that? To whatever extent that means he “did” it I will leave for minds more philosophical than mind to determine. Paul Bunyan replied: Nope. I stick to my dogma. Incompetence explains nearly everything. Fear and love fight it out for what's left. I think the level at which they passively have responsibility exists, but at a few removes.
It's like, should we take the Hart/Rudman study seriously?--and then the answer is no, and there's a semi-unconscious check mark in a mental box that says, kick this out cause it's a win-win, either there is no threat or if there is, it's good for us. But I don't think there was any specific ignoring of intelligence specific to the WTC, for example. And then of course there's the fact that what Hart/Rudman expected (I'm guessing) was 200 dead in a first domestic incident, not 3000.
Even though some people did see the idea of the jet plane attack, still it would have been 3 figures dead, and not 4, even at the WTC if not for the structural collapse, and I don't think anybody took it that far. So if that's the kind of collusion you mean, then o.k.“I could have stopped it. If I am president it won’t happen.” Of course it’s not criticizing him for the right things. It’s an absurd thing, for sure, for Clark to say.
But we aren’t arguing about the comments’ trueness, or how well it reflects on the candidate. All that has nothing to do with the fact that I love the quote as one of the greatest American quotes I have ever heard. Let me say this about that. I think in these times we got to get our love where we find it. If you give me Tyson I'll give you Clark. “I could have stopped it. If I am president it won’t happen.” It’s so crazy, so wonderfully crazy, so fucking smart about distilling what kind of discourse would count for distinguishing itself from the drumbeat we’re getting inundated with. It is also something I love, which is swinging for the fences. It’s the first thing that shows me this guy wants to win. I like that. And it’s obviously what the politicos sitting in the meeting must have been saying to one another.
Here, I’ll give it a whirl: “Well, dammit, the only thing that’s going to beat Bush is if we have him say: ‘If I am president I will protect you. I won’t use fear as a tool. I know what I’m doing. I’ll fix it. I know how to listen to intelligence. I honestly think if I was in charge I would have figured it out better than these idiots did. I would have stopped it. So vote for me, and if I win, I promise we won’t be living in that environment where we’re terrified all the time. We’re better than that.’”And then they just hit upon it. Fuck it, he’s just gotta go out there and say it. It’s either going to sink him or it will elevate him, but it will show that we simply won’t have it. It’s so amazingly American. Just say no.
No, we’re not living in Bush’s world.O.K., you had to really hammer away at me, but I can see now the beauty of Clark's statement. Especially because the second part of it is actually True. The fact is that things will happen--heck, even Timothy McVeigh happened, and so did ted bundy even and all that. The subtext of all, all, all is the NY Nuke, and it either will or won't happen. But the team doesn't need to know the details, they need the Tao (what Clark calls the "right way"), and the Tao relevant to this issue is the mode of living in which we will be o.k. if it doesn't happen, and, more importantly, will even be o.k. if it does happen. And this is possible, as painful as it is even to think about, which is why the team doesn't need to know about it.
But Bush is giving us a fragile world in which the blow will finish us, he's giving us a world of preemptive war and religious hatred, whereas there is another world which Clark expresses just about right: "there is nothing that can hurt us if we stay united and move together and have a vision for moving to the future the right way."Bush is using the insane fear of terror to increase his hold on power. duh. That is the sick reality of the day. You must see that. I think, dammit, I know, every time we go on agent orange alert 500K votes go to the _republican side_. My point is/was this. I agree, of course, the very idea even of creating terror-alerts and then implementing them certainly creates republicans and has been already described by some weird combination of Orwell and Huxley.
But what I was talking about is that these guys, both in Iraq and domestically are paying somewhat slightly for their dogmatism, in the slight corrective of nature that is the tiny and possibly insignificant edge that truth has, by not getting the facts right, even though they've got the propaganda game iced. They are crying wolf, cause they really don;t know anything, cause their intellingece sucks, and are just rolling the dice by calling these alert conditions. The last time they rang the alarm before this one--I think it was the 2002 aniversary of 9/11--nothing at all happened, and a NYTimes piece many months later said that sources inside that process said that they had been totally played by a Guantanamo Bay prisoner. No I am not assuming that people know that, but I am assuming that people noticed that the alarm rang for no fucking reason, and that it was rung again lat month in the same way.
Yes, Bush's guys are smart, and they learned form the last time and realized that this time they had to create fake events, like the cordoning of a number of flights, and yes, I know this probably worked to some degree, i.e. that most people are not aware that all of the security shit that happened was total bullshit, but I still think that even pure TV-watchers can tally it up: 2 Orange ALerts, no atacks and no arrests related to those alerts. If the sock-monkey declared his romper-room Condition Orange and then, subsequently, anything, terrorist-wise, actually happened, or if there were even any significant news-story (even of jessica lynch like fabricatedness) of some prevention of anything, then yes, I agree, many republicans would be created.
But my point was that they have blown it so far. Which I have to say is puzzling, and very encouraging in what it says about how deep the resources of Evil are. The whole thing about terroism is that it is the ultimate of the practical, and Bush and Sharon are simultaneously its "enemies" and its indispensible allies. Anything that Bush does to stay in power, and any perception of there being a need for a man like him to combat terror, are things that any self-respecting "Al-Qaeda" would want to support with everything it's got. The fact that Macy's wasn't blown up (not even a little bit) on christmas leads me to believe simply that they could not do it, because reenforcing Bush's claim that the Orange COndition actually meant anything would do everything they want to do.
Again I see it as incompetence on both sides. Bush rolled the dice. Call the alert, and lose a little if nothing happens, gain a whole lot if it does. It's like going for it on fourth down on the opponent's 30. But still, he didn't get the first down, and I insist that this erodes his credibility. And again, my point was that this is an incremental erosion--one single terror attack of large magnitude on our soil before the election and all this is washed away. One negative point for calling an alert and having nothing terroristic happen. 100 positive points for having anything happen at any time before the election, no matter what the alert status, and it wipes away all the incremental shit.
Yes, there’s a backlash, but let’s first assent to raw brute force reality. Most people are just plain folks and this shit sounds scary! Certainly the whole Hitlerian terror alert and homeland defense thing works. I'm only talking about the little chinks in its armor.So on the level of meaning where anybody would know that making a claim like that is asinine, I say to those people that cancels out with the sheer audacity of the statement, and how deeply it represents congealed denial, wish fulfillment and the American dream. So you can’t ding it for being wrong. He gets a get out of jail free card on being factually wrong or stating the impossible because he fucking said it, said the thing everybody, deep in their bones, was longing to hear (that’s why you’re reacting to it so strongly the other way).
Yeah. And he gets it because any moron knows that’s impossible, so then, what’s he really saying? You have to get past your purist upsetness that someone would say such a thing. Because it’s clear that it’s unenforceable. But again, that’s depending on how you look at it. Either way though, that’s done with. What’s left is the sense that there’s a guy willing to say he’s going to change reality. Reagan kind of did it with the hostages, and to such a dramatic extent that that apparent reality vanished the day he took office.
And of course the amazing thing is the historical fact that he negotiated with the Iranians prior to the election--who had been going to release the hostages in the fall--promising them stuff (arms I think) to wait until he was in. You know this stuff already right? But the thing remains that he was a guy who made it work as you say. It was like the malaise was over. Most of America needs a strong, kind, warm looking president that will make it all OK. And you can’t hate people for wanting that. And you can’t hate it when somebody tries to give it to ‘em. Of course that’s not what we ultimately want. We want real consciousness.
But I promise you that the hope (and hope, I claim, is the remainder of that equation) represented, though in a very twisted way, in that home run swing, is inextricably between our present state of collective unconsciousness and denial and true consciousness: actually being aware and strong enough to live in the real world. I know. ANd I know you can't tell the team "well these guys might kill us all along with your wives and babies, but still we might win..." But my point is, it freaks me out. It still seems like you promise them that the other team won't even get a first down and you are riding for a fall..cause they are going to get that first down and then what do you say?--Paul Bunyan- Uncle Sam
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At 02:38 PM 1/9/2004, you wrote:
Uncle Sam wrote today to his buddy Paul Bunyan:I think we’re agreeing that the overkill of pushing the alarm has a backlash effect. All I’m saying is that’s in the context of the initial effect of creating the alarm reality to begin with. So 5 million people switched to being very afraid, i.e., Republicans, and sure, OK, sum total of both of the Crying Wolfs, I’ll give you 500,000. Except I think my 5 million is low.OK, on to your last and final question. Everybody knows the best way to make something happen is to visualize it.
Or to stop something is to visualize it not happening. So his quote is crucial to at least the chance that collectively we could have some impact on what it might be possible for terrorists to do. More than that, it’s deeply populistic. It’s even to the point of countenancing a militia, the idea that the government is the people, that we can be a society that works together to protect itself. So the 1st half of the answer is that what’s established if he wins is something of that reality. Then the 2nd half, and what happens if and when a bad thing happens is that the spirit of how we rally is different, because no one will be mad at him for letting us down. All that will be left is the residual goodheartedness. We’re a team is the way it’s gotta be. No matter what.
- Uncle Sam
Here's one of the stories: http://www.detnews.com/2004/politics/0401/11/politics-31662.htm.
It was really something, and when I shared the general's claims with my good friend Paul Bunyan, he became incensed at the irresponsibility of the quote. I wrote him and asked: What do you think?
Starting directly below is what he wrote back to me, and then me to him, on down to our conclusions about what taking a position such as this might mean. So unlike normal email threads, this one is stacked so you can read it top to bottom.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Paul Bunyan
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 2:17 PM
To: Uncle Sam
Subject: Re: FW: pull over buddy
I am so sad, so angry, so disappointed...so really, really alarmed... by the stupidity of these guys who want to pretend to run this country. It's weird that almost everyone seems to agree that the way to win an election to speak completely irresponsibly.
Not only is guaranteeing security either total bullshit or a promise of a police state (and even then still bullshit), but it's also just a really bad thing to say, a bad thread to launch, a bad meme to propogate. ANd not only that, it's more of this kind of shit that all the Dems are doing that may or may help them win a few primary votes, but which completely distorts and trashes the political discourse of the party as a whole, and hurts everbody's chances in the general elec.
--Paul Bunyan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yeah the clark thing is so weird. I have a buddy who is working for him. Clark is COOL in the “cool media” -- you have to be this way -- sort of way. He’s a Modern TV Guy. A CNN guy. And from my media studies, those are the folks who can win. The question for me is the degree to which he’s a person of conviction, of caring, of his own mind. He’s a little too cute alright, and maybe up against George that would stand out more.However.I love the quote. Insofar as words are what they are, which is a simulacrum of what is truly possible, I like what he said. They can’t hurt us. I’ve been wanting somebody to say this for a long time. In the language of what passes for American politics, it’s fucking awesome. He’s just saying no. Do you kind of see my angle?~ Uncle Sam
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At 07:54 PM 1/9/2004, Paul Bunyan wrote:
Not any. 1) You can't ever say this can't happen. 2) To say 9/11 was Bush's fault is to criticize him for the wrong things. Even if Bush did the thing (which is not true), or even passively allowed it for political reasons (still not true but at least possible), it's the wrong thing to criticize him for. What clark is essentially saying is I would have been more facist than he. WHich is the wrong way to go.
The democratic thing is as you said, is about, we make happen more money, more sex, more happiness. The victory path is not to say, yeah I could beat those evildoers better. Its to say, we didn't have these evildoers at all when we were president. let's get back to living good life and stop focusing on all this negative shit. I think every time we go to orange alert or some fucking embarassing ridiculous shit like that and nothing happens, 500,00 votes shift over to the dem side. Only thing is, one more terrorist attack on U.S. soil under any conditions and 5 million votes shift over the other way.
Clark can say it doesn't matter, he can say we will conquer it by other means, he can say it's bushes fault even, but he can't say I can prevent such things. It's just not true and it's a false hope and phony and riding for a fall. A football team can guarantee a victory, but no one can guarantee "security" which does not exist.
--Paul Bunyan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Paul Bunyan
Sent: Sunday, January 11, 2004
9:54 PM
To: Uncle Sam
Subject: RE: FW: pull over buddy/incompetence fear and love
Uncle Sam wrote: I may be in the minority, but I can’t discount that Bush & Co. ignored certain information for political reasons. You really don’t believe that? To whatever extent that means he “did” it I will leave for minds more philosophical than mind to determine. Paul Bunyan replied: Nope. I stick to my dogma. Incompetence explains nearly everything. Fear and love fight it out for what's left. I think the level at which they passively have responsibility exists, but at a few removes.
It's like, should we take the Hart/Rudman study seriously?--and then the answer is no, and there's a semi-unconscious check mark in a mental box that says, kick this out cause it's a win-win, either there is no threat or if there is, it's good for us. But I don't think there was any specific ignoring of intelligence specific to the WTC, for example. And then of course there's the fact that what Hart/Rudman expected (I'm guessing) was 200 dead in a first domestic incident, not 3000.
Even though some people did see the idea of the jet plane attack, still it would have been 3 figures dead, and not 4, even at the WTC if not for the structural collapse, and I don't think anybody took it that far. So if that's the kind of collusion you mean, then o.k.“I could have stopped it. If I am president it won’t happen.” Of course it’s not criticizing him for the right things. It’s an absurd thing, for sure, for Clark to say.
But we aren’t arguing about the comments’ trueness, or how well it reflects on the candidate. All that has nothing to do with the fact that I love the quote as one of the greatest American quotes I have ever heard. Let me say this about that. I think in these times we got to get our love where we find it. If you give me Tyson I'll give you Clark. “I could have stopped it. If I am president it won’t happen.” It’s so crazy, so wonderfully crazy, so fucking smart about distilling what kind of discourse would count for distinguishing itself from the drumbeat we’re getting inundated with. It is also something I love, which is swinging for the fences. It’s the first thing that shows me this guy wants to win. I like that. And it’s obviously what the politicos sitting in the meeting must have been saying to one another.
Here, I’ll give it a whirl: “Well, dammit, the only thing that’s going to beat Bush is if we have him say: ‘If I am president I will protect you. I won’t use fear as a tool. I know what I’m doing. I’ll fix it. I know how to listen to intelligence. I honestly think if I was in charge I would have figured it out better than these idiots did. I would have stopped it. So vote for me, and if I win, I promise we won’t be living in that environment where we’re terrified all the time. We’re better than that.’”And then they just hit upon it. Fuck it, he’s just gotta go out there and say it. It’s either going to sink him or it will elevate him, but it will show that we simply won’t have it. It’s so amazingly American. Just say no.
No, we’re not living in Bush’s world.O.K., you had to really hammer away at me, but I can see now the beauty of Clark's statement. Especially because the second part of it is actually True. The fact is that things will happen--heck, even Timothy McVeigh happened, and so did ted bundy even and all that. The subtext of all, all, all is the NY Nuke, and it either will or won't happen. But the team doesn't need to know the details, they need the Tao (what Clark calls the "right way"), and the Tao relevant to this issue is the mode of living in which we will be o.k. if it doesn't happen, and, more importantly, will even be o.k. if it does happen. And this is possible, as painful as it is even to think about, which is why the team doesn't need to know about it.
But Bush is giving us a fragile world in which the blow will finish us, he's giving us a world of preemptive war and religious hatred, whereas there is another world which Clark expresses just about right: "there is nothing that can hurt us if we stay united and move together and have a vision for moving to the future the right way."Bush is using the insane fear of terror to increase his hold on power. duh. That is the sick reality of the day. You must see that. I think, dammit, I know, every time we go on agent orange alert 500K votes go to the _republican side_. My point is/was this. I agree, of course, the very idea even of creating terror-alerts and then implementing them certainly creates republicans and has been already described by some weird combination of Orwell and Huxley.
But what I was talking about is that these guys, both in Iraq and domestically are paying somewhat slightly for their dogmatism, in the slight corrective of nature that is the tiny and possibly insignificant edge that truth has, by not getting the facts right, even though they've got the propaganda game iced. They are crying wolf, cause they really don;t know anything, cause their intellingece sucks, and are just rolling the dice by calling these alert conditions. The last time they rang the alarm before this one--I think it was the 2002 aniversary of 9/11--nothing at all happened, and a NYTimes piece many months later said that sources inside that process said that they had been totally played by a Guantanamo Bay prisoner. No I am not assuming that people know that, but I am assuming that people noticed that the alarm rang for no fucking reason, and that it was rung again lat month in the same way.
Yes, Bush's guys are smart, and they learned form the last time and realized that this time they had to create fake events, like the cordoning of a number of flights, and yes, I know this probably worked to some degree, i.e. that most people are not aware that all of the security shit that happened was total bullshit, but I still think that even pure TV-watchers can tally it up: 2 Orange ALerts, no atacks and no arrests related to those alerts. If the sock-monkey declared his romper-room Condition Orange and then, subsequently, anything, terrorist-wise, actually happened, or if there were even any significant news-story (even of jessica lynch like fabricatedness) of some prevention of anything, then yes, I agree, many republicans would be created.
But my point was that they have blown it so far. Which I have to say is puzzling, and very encouraging in what it says about how deep the resources of Evil are. The whole thing about terroism is that it is the ultimate of the practical, and Bush and Sharon are simultaneously its "enemies" and its indispensible allies. Anything that Bush does to stay in power, and any perception of there being a need for a man like him to combat terror, are things that any self-respecting "Al-Qaeda" would want to support with everything it's got. The fact that Macy's wasn't blown up (not even a little bit) on christmas leads me to believe simply that they could not do it, because reenforcing Bush's claim that the Orange COndition actually meant anything would do everything they want to do.
Again I see it as incompetence on both sides. Bush rolled the dice. Call the alert, and lose a little if nothing happens, gain a whole lot if it does. It's like going for it on fourth down on the opponent's 30. But still, he didn't get the first down, and I insist that this erodes his credibility. And again, my point was that this is an incremental erosion--one single terror attack of large magnitude on our soil before the election and all this is washed away. One negative point for calling an alert and having nothing terroristic happen. 100 positive points for having anything happen at any time before the election, no matter what the alert status, and it wipes away all the incremental shit.
Yes, there’s a backlash, but let’s first assent to raw brute force reality. Most people are just plain folks and this shit sounds scary! Certainly the whole Hitlerian terror alert and homeland defense thing works. I'm only talking about the little chinks in its armor.So on the level of meaning where anybody would know that making a claim like that is asinine, I say to those people that cancels out with the sheer audacity of the statement, and how deeply it represents congealed denial, wish fulfillment and the American dream. So you can’t ding it for being wrong. He gets a get out of jail free card on being factually wrong or stating the impossible because he fucking said it, said the thing everybody, deep in their bones, was longing to hear (that’s why you’re reacting to it so strongly the other way).
Yeah. And he gets it because any moron knows that’s impossible, so then, what’s he really saying? You have to get past your purist upsetness that someone would say such a thing. Because it’s clear that it’s unenforceable. But again, that’s depending on how you look at it. Either way though, that’s done with. What’s left is the sense that there’s a guy willing to say he’s going to change reality. Reagan kind of did it with the hostages, and to such a dramatic extent that that apparent reality vanished the day he took office.
And of course the amazing thing is the historical fact that he negotiated with the Iranians prior to the election--who had been going to release the hostages in the fall--promising them stuff (arms I think) to wait until he was in. You know this stuff already right? But the thing remains that he was a guy who made it work as you say. It was like the malaise was over. Most of America needs a strong, kind, warm looking president that will make it all OK. And you can’t hate people for wanting that. And you can’t hate it when somebody tries to give it to ‘em. Of course that’s not what we ultimately want. We want real consciousness.
But I promise you that the hope (and hope, I claim, is the remainder of that equation) represented, though in a very twisted way, in that home run swing, is inextricably between our present state of collective unconsciousness and denial and true consciousness: actually being aware and strong enough to live in the real world. I know. ANd I know you can't tell the team "well these guys might kill us all along with your wives and babies, but still we might win..." But my point is, it freaks me out. It still seems like you promise them that the other team won't even get a first down and you are riding for a fall..cause they are going to get that first down and then what do you say?--Paul Bunyan- Uncle Sam
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At 02:38 PM 1/9/2004, you wrote:
Uncle Sam wrote today to his buddy Paul Bunyan:I think we’re agreeing that the overkill of pushing the alarm has a backlash effect. All I’m saying is that’s in the context of the initial effect of creating the alarm reality to begin with. So 5 million people switched to being very afraid, i.e., Republicans, and sure, OK, sum total of both of the Crying Wolfs, I’ll give you 500,000. Except I think my 5 million is low.OK, on to your last and final question. Everybody knows the best way to make something happen is to visualize it.
Or to stop something is to visualize it not happening. So his quote is crucial to at least the chance that collectively we could have some impact on what it might be possible for terrorists to do. More than that, it’s deeply populistic. It’s even to the point of countenancing a militia, the idea that the government is the people, that we can be a society that works together to protect itself. So the 1st half of the answer is that what’s established if he wins is something of that reality. Then the 2nd half, and what happens if and when a bad thing happens is that the spirit of how we rally is different, because no one will be mad at him for letting us down. All that will be left is the residual goodheartedness. We’re a team is the way it’s gotta be. No matter what.
- Uncle Sam
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