Last night Jon Stewart interviewed a relaxed and happy looking Barack Obama. What has struck me this past week besides my PTSD from the Bush Administration, and fretting over the reports coming out of our good friend Brad's blog about the voting situation, is that there is a certain sour grapes feeling emerging from the right that no one would want this horrible state of affairs now anyway. (...just some ongoing wingnuttia on Hardball; to which I think that even Tweety said to whichever wingnut it was, "well you'd take it if you could, right?")

Woe is to the President that has a House and Senate fully in line with him, because then the blame cant fall anywhere but on that one party. I suppose that some sort of investigation and...er...impeachment might have laid the blame for alot of this on the correct shoulders, but that was not what the party wanted to focus on. So, the American short memory will ensure that the democrats get all the blame for things not moving forward fast enough or things overlooked in the coming years. There will be blame for sure, even if its the American people, so trained in their responses and set in their imperialistic ways, regardless of if their dominion is a mobile home or a mansion, unable to effect and allow change for fear of losing a few dollars here or there. Hey, you save in the long run with preventative care, but most people seem to want the payoff now!

My favorite part of Jon Stewart's interview with Barack Obama last night was that Obama makes it clear that now is the perfect time to effect change, if you're really in it for the right reasons. Presidential politics seems to have morphed into a game where the aim is to cause only enough waves to profit your friends, and emerge with a fine legacy or at least a compulsion fulfilled, regardless of if anything got better in the process. Its all about who gets the blame and who gets the cash. There are two types involved in this mess as far as I can see: the type that sees that there is more looting to be done before its time for the rapture, and the type that is actually a public servant and embraces the hard work of trying to put this thing back together. I could count the uninformed, the dreamers, the anger management problem folks, the risk takers and the gamblers who think that one more lotto ticket will put them up in that high bracket that Obama is attacking. Everyone can get whipped up into a frenzy by Donald Trump when the possibilities being real, but when you look around the Hyatt ballroom and realize that its full of suckers just like you with a pile of bills on the table at home, reality and logic have to take over in the world of grownups.

I believe that Obama is in this for the right reasons. And even though I haven't been his staunchest supporter along the way, I think he shows a great understanding of the hysteria that has gripped the country, and may be able to bring some calm and rational behavior to this situation. I sure hope so because I'm tired, I cant sleep, and I don't know if I can live here if McCain Palin get into office.




Americans of a certain stripe seem to forget the society part of our country; how our technological and intellectual advances were made possible by sacrifices of others who emigrated here or slaved away in factories to make a penny. This stuff isn't taught in school in any real way anymore, but the idea that so many American view the waxing and waning semi-socialist way that this country has run from the get-go as some sort of dictatorship, is just laughable.

So worried is the right about redistribution of the wealth that they forget that the only reason that they were able to earn that money was on the shoulders of everyone who came before, settled this place, fought in wars, invented and designed and worked their asses off in order to give Joe the Plumber the opportunity and the right to spew his nonsense. Call it greed or ego, but Americans are not all that special that we just deserve a chance...and God didn't just give us this fertile land; we took it from the Native Americans in grotesque and horrible ways that we are supposedly still repaying (though, last I looked, we still hold the principal of that, and its counted against the national debt...) Hoarding all of our money in the mattress with that smaller government or whatever it is they are calling it, and no standing army, would leave guys like Joe the Plumber out in the cold if his house catches on fire or he should need the police...or even if he drives down a road or highway to go to his non-job where he spins his web of lies.

I want to know what part of the infrastructure of America, physically and socially, the McCain campaign thinks is not some part of redistribution of wealth. I also want to know what part of the fire and police departments they want to privatize and outsource, because the failing infrastructure of the entire country should indicate how well that works! ...bridges and tunnels and highways and parks? How about the national forests?...come on!

I want to know how Halliburton would run social services? This is not how America was designed, and if what was once a village based economy, where each neighbor could rely on another, has grown to include an organized bureaucracy with which we imperfectly get help when we need it, I would have to say that it may be worthwhile for one of these guys to stand up and say that America is semi-socialist and that unregulated capitalism doesn't work!

A friend taking a friend in if their house is destroyed...is that socialism? Bringing a casserole when a community member loses a loved one...is that Socialism? Helping a friend with a sick relative....the list goes on, and its not considered wrong or strange in smaller view. Churches and social groups collect dues or contributions that go towards running an infrastructure; is that socialism? Its when the population grows and progress moves in such a way that we lose our tribal and family ties; when we begin to rely on the market of a bigger structure than just the farm fields, that we need more of a main structure into which everyone contributes. With proper representation there shouldn't be a problem. Its only a problem if it becomes a talking point and is misused to the point where the word has no meaning anymore. Rather than talking about it so much, I wonder how much time any of these disgruntled wing nuts in my town actually get involved in cutting down on overspending or bureaucracy! Ill tell you, its usually only involving something that effects their bank account or their backyard.

Up the road from me is the old town of Bedford Village, NY. I often take my dog Lola to the green, which, as part of the historic preservation of the area, has a plaque that notes that local farmers shared this village green for grazing their cattle. I'm sure then that they also worked on the green and reseeded it, as good neighbors banding together through hard winters and hot summers. Through history there have been cooperative efforts on the part of Americans, which can be seen in the endless piled stone walls around, here made of the stones that tough Americans plowed up from this rocky place, in order to grow crops. The stone walls built all over the Bedford town square and all roads coming and going from it, were not brought in from Home Depot; they were part of a cooperative where everyone gave time and whatever they had to better the whole. Its only now, in the twisted minds of these wing nuts, that we are seeing some deep rooted form of hate that throws the poor, and anyone else outside of some perceived lucky group, under the bus.

The horrible thing is that Americans likely need to have some tragedy, like the great depression with no social net, or children dying because roads are not maintained, to see that regulation is necessary. The greater good can only be served by Americans remembering that we are all the same, and if our weakest part is really our strongest as a society, then we have been neglecting that part too long. There is a greater good, and if life is fleeting for us , we still have the responsibility of every American since the beginning of this great experiment to leave something to our children; some foundation to stand on for their own dreams.

Ive been avoiding alot of this, and spending time with my birds because I find that I am just really...upset...worried. but I will be making some calls and doing something this weekend...and Im trying to not get my hopes up or take anything for granted in this. Anything can happen, and as much as Obama should have the numbers down...look at BradBlog for some scary facts that will give you pause.

Here is my friend Susan hobnobbing with the actual Barack!...um...or a reasonable depiction of him!...close enough! You go girl!

c/p RIPCoco

Labels: Barack Obama, democracy, Jon Stewart, socialism, The Daily Show

Unlike in the U.S., where Congressional Democrats and Republicans have decided that gross violations of the Constitution don't matter, and that presidents are allowed to set their own laws even if they violate said Constitution, in Pakistan things are different:

Under pressure over impending impeachment charges, President Pervez Musharraf announced he would resign Monday, ending nearly nine years as the head of one of the United States’ most important allies in the campaign against terrorism.

Speaking on television from his presidential office here at 1 p.m., Mr. Musharraf, dressed in a gray suit and tie, said that after consulting with his aides, “I have decided to resign today.” He said he was putting national interest above “personal bravado.”

“Whether I win or lose the impeachment, the nation will lose,” he said, adding that he was not prepared to put the office of the presidency through the impeachment process.

[snip]

Mr. Musharraf has been under strong pressure in the past few days, as the coalition said it had completed a charge sheet to take to Parliament for his impeachment. The charges were centered on “gross violations” of the Constitution, according to the minister of information, Sherry Rehman.

The rhetoric from the coalition mounted over the weekend, but the leading politicians wavered on an exact date for bringing the charges, thus leaving a window for Mr. Musharraf to leave.

In his speech, Mr. Musharraf tore into the coalition for what he called their failed economic policies. He said Pakistan’s critical economic situation — a declining currency, capital flight, soaring inflation — was their responsibility. In contrast, he said, his policies had brought prosperity out of near economic collapse when he took charge in 1999.

He then gave a laundry list of his achievements, ranging from expanded road networks to a national art gallery in the capital. Although Pakistan’s literacy rate hovers around 50 percent, and is much lower among women, he took credit for new schools.

The army, the most powerful institution in Pakistan, stayed publicly above the fray in the past 10 days. But in remaining studiously neutral and declining to come to Mr. Musharraf’s rescue, the new leader of the army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvaz Kayani, tipped the scales against the president, politicians said.

So in Pakistan, we have a general who took power in a bloodless coup, and yet that country's coalition government was prepared to impeach, while here in the U.S., that beacon of democracy for the world, our so-called opposition party leader announced right after an election which put her party in power, that impeachment was off the table, and that a president who has committed crimes that make Nixon look like George Washington, should have no accountability for his crimes.

The irony makes the mind reel.

Labels: democracy, Democratic sellouts, impeachment, Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf

I don't think even John Edwards believes anymore that he can get this nomination, not after his paltry, if still better-than-expected showing in South Carolina lately. But unlike Hillary Clinton, who along with spouse Bill, is showing that there are no depths below which she'll sink to obtain the nomination for the presidency, Edwards seems to see his role now as the anchor on the other side of the Democratic tug-of-war between the Liebercrat wing of the party, for which no capitulation to the most extreme right-wing position is too great a price to pay for "bipartisanship", and the progressive, Democratic wing of the Democratic party.

With forces from the DLC to the talking heads of the media persisting in the erroneous notion that this is basically a conservative country pulling both Hillary Cinton and Barack Obama towards the right, John Edwards is right there, tugging them back, reminding them that there are still American individuals who need to be represented, not just corporations and their lobbyists. He's necessary to keep the other two candidates at least slightly in touch with ordinary Americans. And he's still necessary in the unlikely event that the escalating ugliness being perpetrated by the Clintonistas succeeds in destroying both Clinton's and Obama's candidacies in the days before SupercalifragilisticexpialiTuesday.

If New Hampshire's result was a smackdown of the mainstream media, especially Chris Matthews, by New Hampshire women, South Carolina's result was a smackdown of Clintonista race-baiting by African-American voters in that state. Obama's solid trouncing of Hillary Clinton in yesterday's primary should send a message to the Clintons: Sorry, Bill, you're not the first black president anymore.

Who would have believed, after black Ohio voters stood in the rain for ten hours in 2004 and still were not able to vote, that it would be a Democratic former president and his candidate spouse who would be the ones to rip open the scabs of race relations in America, all for nothing but pure, blind ambition. If Obama is the nominee, I will support him despite my reservations about his toughness against an attack machine the likes of which the Clintonistas are just a pale imitation. But last night, in a spectacular victory speech, he was simultaneously gracious, grateful, and defiant:



I'd like to see more of this from him, particularly if Bill 'n' Hill's polling in the February 5th states starts to show their restoration slipping away. At a time when the economy is in tatters, were embroiled in a war without end, and in debt up to our eyeballs, watching the Clintons' "Me, me, me, it's all about me" campaign is almost enough to make me understand just what it was about them that the wingnuts hated all those years.

The contrast between John Edwards' carefully worded promise, no longer to win, but to make sure the voices of ordinary Americans are heard, and Clinton's "Let's pretend this never happened and go on to our certain victory on Super Tuesday" stump speech made it clear where all this is going. Edwards is aware that his role in this campaign has changed, and seems to accept it. Clinton will accept nothing less than victory, even if she has to destroy her own or Obama's eventual candidacy and cede the presidency to the Republicans to do it.

On Friday's Countdown, Keith Olbermann talked about the pledged "superdelegates", who could very well throw the nomination to Clinton even if Obama is ahead in state delegates at the time. With the Clintons seemingly doing everything they can to alienate both black voters and the progressive party base, it would be appalling to witness a bunch of party hacks, all of them in thrall to wads of corporate cash, override the will of the people in an effort to retain their own power. That spectacle could do more to convince Americans that democracy is dead in this country than anything the Republicans could do.

Labels: 2008 election, democracy, racism