It's Not Funny Anymore

Over the several months since Donald Trump entered his oversized hat into the Presidential race, many in the media, and I, have had plenty of fun as his expense.    The list of nicknames is long and legion: Tribblehead, T-Rump, The T-Rump Trumpet, The Walking Toupee, and on, and on, and so on.   His quirks, such as his propensity to refer to himself in the third person, his lavish personal tastes, and his oversized and over-bloated ego in general (manifest by his making DAMNED sure that his name appears on EVERYTHING he touches), have made him a media magnet.    Perhaps that is exactly how he got as far as he has in this election, still being the Republican front-runner.   He plays the media as if it were a Stradivarius, and at this writing, over 40 percent of Republican voters are dancing to his tune.     

Couldn't have Said It Better Myself

I saw bits and pieces of the Second Dem Debate the other night.   I'll let The Sane Progressive give you her take, as it pretty much matches mine...

Click Here for her Facebook page.  As you'll see, she is absolutely NO fan of Hillary - and increasingly, neither am I.  

Quibbles and Bits, Ozzie Bengazi and the Force of a Bullet in the Foot edition

The Bengazi Committee

I can understand how emotion can override reason, having been guilty of that mind crime many, many times in my life.   But if anyone wants a mass, real-life example of how Yosemite Sam-ridiculous this looks, check no further than the Bengazi Committee.   Hillary Clinton didn't need to expend much effort making the committee members look like the assclowns they are.   Just a little rhetorical and politcal jiu-jitsu, then stand back and watch the heads explode like thermite in the hands of the Mythbusters.   And what will be the ultimate result?  Free positive press and campaign ads for Hillary.   A Republican party with it's head and trunk tucked between it's legs.   And very likely, the final nail in the coffin of any legitimate challenge to Hillary in the primaries and the general election.

UPDATE 11/15 - This statement above is not to imply endorsement of Hillary Clinton - not in any way whatsoever.   See the post above as to why.    

Myths Bustin' Moves

Speaking of thermite and Mythbusters, it has just come to my attention that Jamie and Adam will be riding off into the sunset after next season.     Thirteen years of busting BS, from the confines of the Bay Area.   Through the format changes - semi-reality-documentary in the beginning, through the Build Team phase, up through today's slick production pieces - the boys have been able to keep the show fresh, interesting, and at times, hilariously funny.   They've always had an interactive element to the show, encouraging viewers to submit ideas and actually running with these ideas, often to classic effect.   I'm sure that the show will sustain a long run in syndication, having produced close to 300 episodes, and it's available on Hulu and iTunes.    Personally, I'd like to see Adam and Jamie bring back the Build Team (Tory/Grant/Kari, and perhaps Jessie Combs) for one more mega-myth-bust.   That would be satisfying.   

More to come, stay tuned...

Quibbles and Bits, Mental Masters of Debators Edition

More morsels and chewy fun-sized bits, guaranteed to go down with minimal effort.

The First Democratic Debate

I confess that I did not watch the debate "as it happened" - I only saw a few clips.   So I cannot judge performance or what was actually said.   I can, however, provide a view on the reactions I've been seeing on various media outlets and the Internet.

Here's my big gripe.  Virtually every poll taken immediately after the shindig showed Bernie Sanders overwhelmingly winning the debate, but the pundit class, down to the talking head, said Hillary "crushed" it, "smoked" it, and other semi-creative metaphors for winning the debate.  Now, a few days after the debate, I'm seeing what appears to be modified poll results showing how Hillary "won".    This should prove to anyone observing, beyond any shadow of any doubt, that Big Media is actively trying to rig this election.    Jeb! and Hillary are the establishment choices, people who they can control.    Sanders is a wild card, complete with wild hair and wild hand gestures.    They won't be able to control things in DC under a Sanders presidency - something that even Ann Coulter recognized when, on her soul-home of Foxy News, she stated that "Hillary is the one we want to run against."   She's seeing a deja-vu situation here, and I actually agree with her.  

Another theory tossed around about the perceived "smooth ride" Hillary was expected to get and have faciliated by the DNC, is that the leadership of the DNC is predominantly women, who have a vested interested in putting a woman in the Oval Office.    This theory strikes me as, besides misogynistic, somewhat short-sighted and failing to see the big picture.    Hillary is the establishment candidate - she hobnobs with the banks and corporate America, goes to their garden parties, and for the most part, IS one of them.    Her funding sources are virtually the same as those for Jeb! and the other Republican puppets.  

Wither Democratic Underground? 

I used to be a semi-regular contributor to Democratic Underground.  At one time, I looked forward to seeing features such as the "Top 10 Conservative Idiots", and generally found the give-and-take enjoyable - at least in most of the threads in which I participated.    SInce well before Hillary announced her candidacy, however, I've seen an increasingly militancy regarding her campaign - and I use the word "militancy" judiciously in this case.    To some of the posters who embody this militancy, through insults, snark, quasi-personal attacks, treating anybody who doesn't tow their line as an enemy, or worse, threatening those with whom they disagree with TOS violation reports, this seems to be a sacred duty.  I'm going to name a couple of the biggest offenders here: VanillaRhapsody and Wyldwolf, I'm calling you out.   People like this, who I suspect are at the very least, campaign volunteers if not paid professionals working on behalf of the Clinton campaign or the DNC (they're synonymous these days), will trot out charts and "fact sheets" about Clinton's voting record ('NillaRap is notorious for this), and will tell people not in agreement with them that they are not "loyal Democrats", "left-leaning independents" (GASP!!!)  and other diatribes that question the offender's loyalty to the Democratic Party.   

I recall a post (I don't have the link right now), which explains some of this behavior.   The poster stated that it's "because we remember 1972" and the disunity of that campaign leading to the nomination of a well-meaning, brilliant, yet unprepared candidate - Senator George McGovern.   Remember:  this was over two decades prior to the creation of Foxy News, and look what the media machine and the Repubs were able to do to the Democratic candidates in that campaign.  When you get a chance, I recommend Googling not only McGovern, but also Edmund Muskie.   These men were driven right through the wringer with the bad press, innuendos, and in the case of Muskie, dirty tricks.   The landslide for Nixon was only a small part of the tragedy.   Another part is what this campaign did to these men, and those that supported them.    Even larger that those was the continued deaths in Vietnam, and what was to come two years later.   

So what is the logic here?  Here's my bet.   These people look at Sanders and see a rerun of McGovern.   They see a candidate who wears "socialism" like a badge when most of the country still has no real idea of what it is.   They see Hillary as tried and true, and somebody who has already had the opposition research done against her and has come out as the Democratic front-runner in 2016.  Many of them also see this as "her due" - given her career in public service.    Also, as with any cult of personality, they will see their favorite candidate through the lenses of what they want to see, rather than what is actually true.   She may have a lefty-leaning voting record as a Senator (in some things), but she's way too cozy with Wall Street and the Banks to be called any kind of progressive.  She's also a known hawk when it comes to foreign and military policy.   This "rose-colored glass" effect also exists with some Sanders supporters, who may be so focused on his economic message that they forget to see his stand on gun rights - which may be appropriate for a rural state like Vermont but not for the metropolitan areas like NYC and Los Angeles.    

So in short, I'm finding that Democratic Underground is becoming less and less hospitable to those of us who question Hillary's anointment.    The political operatives know the value of sites like DU and intend to leverage them to the hilt, so, my prediction is that they will pretty much take over DU and exile the "dissenters".    Fine.   I'll take my commentary to Facebook.   

Lives That Matter

     A few words about the recent events surrounding #blacklivesmatter and the controversy surrounding them – and if you possess a lighter skin tone, these words are especially for you:

>> By saying Black Lives Matter, nobody is saying that other lives don’t matter.    When people deface their signs by removing the “Black”, or by chanting “All Lives Matter”, the reaction I have is “DUH!”  These defacements and re-statements are dismissive, and miss the point of the message.   This is not a zero-sum game, with some lives mattering and some not – that’s part of the point of all of this. 

 

     Turn on the TV, or the radio.   Look at any number of the major supermarket “People” Magazine-inspired fish wrap rags, and check for the stories involving somebody’s murder, rape, or other tragedy.   If it’s a non-Black face, it will get far more coverage and fawning over than the same types of things happening to those with dark skin.   Remember Jon-Benet Ramsey?  Or Natalie Holloway? Or Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson and the ensuing circus?  This isn’t to discount what happened to them – murder is murder is murder.    But when the same thing happens to an African American, the tendency in our white supremacist culture has been to dismiss it, as something that happened “over there”, “to those people”, and to write it off as an expected event in a “poor”, “high-crime” (both code words for BLACK) neighborhood.  

>> Why go after Bernie Sanders, especially with his extensive record of work on behalf of civil rights issues (to the point of arrest)?   From what I’ve seen in Slate and other internet postings, when the two BLM activists co-opted the stage in Seattle a couple of weeks ago, the target was not Bernie Sanders.   It was the thousands of people drawn to the event.    Most of these people were light-skinned, and considered themselves progressive in their politics.   The point of it?  You can’t be a “progressive” and ignore the issue of racial inequality, while at the same time trumpet to the moon the issue of economic inequality.  They are intertwined, especially in American society.     I’m sure that this was not Bernie’s intent – the lesson here, from a political standpoint, is to include the movement from the outset of the campaign.   From what I’ve seen so far, he’s learning this lesson well, which just might be his ticket to the White House.  

>> Take another look at Chris Hedges’ recent works, especially Death of the Liberal Class.    What you’re seeing in these BLM actions can virtually be taken straight from Hedges’ work: civil disobedience, especially of the asymmetrical kind like what happened in Seattle.    So far, they are proving effective at shifting the national dialog, even in the seemingly messy way they are occurring. 

 

>> Why the urgency, and now?   What would you do if it was your son or daughter killed or injured at the hands of a cop?   Especially if that son or daughter was unarmed and posing no threat to that cop?  What if you look around and see the same thing happening to your neighbors ON A DAILY BASIS?  What if the media completely ignores you and dismisses you when these tragedies happen?  What if you’re keenly aware of your history and the history of this country in relationship to the ethnic group in which you are a part?  You reach a breaking point.     We’ve reached breaking points like this before:  the Watts Riots come to mind, the fire hoses drawn on protesters in the 1960s in the Deep South, and other violent actions perpetrated against peaceful protesters.    We’re at yet another breaking point now, and if this is not addressed, then Watts and Ferguson will be comparable only to cake walks.  

I’ll have much more to say on this in coming posts.   Stay tuned.  

Quibbles and Bits, Over the Hills and With the Shills edition

More chewy bites...

>>T-Rump was on full display in all his in-glory in the Repub shoutfest earlier this week.    Misogyny, narcissism, classism, bullshit-ism, insert-your-ism here.    And judging from the polling, the Repub rubes are eating it up like candy!    He’s an “outsider”, after all.   No – he came out and said that as a businessman, he contributed to whoever so he got what he wanted in legislation.   At least he’s honest.

>>Where is the Dem pushback to all of this?   The speculation on parts of the left wing is that the DNC is trying to set the table all nice and neat for Hillary.   Fewer debates, less chances for gaffes, fewer opportunities for the Bernie train to pick up steam.    This should be a genuine worry for the Hillary camp:  Bernie gets thousands of people per event at his stops, and those people volunteer and are enthusiastic about his candidacy.   I don’t hear about nearly that type of enthusiasm over in the Hills.   Any enthusiasm in her camp is likely happening behind the guarded gates and in the garden parties of the 1%.   They express it in $$ - which is, after all, speech – just ask the SCOTUS.

>>I have dubbed the DNC chair Debbie Weasleman-Shiltz.   She’s a classic DINO, and perhaps one of the most corrupt congress critters in Washington – which is saying a LOT.   She owes a lot to a lot of people.   She’s clearly in the Hillary camp, and judging from her clueless responses to Tweety regarding the Sanders campaign last week, shows as little understanding of Bernie’s appeal as Tweety does.    Or perhaps, she’s trying to plead ignorance in the same way a child puts his/her fingers in the ears whenever the pressure gets too much.   Either way, she’s a symptom and not a solution.   

Mas later.   

Being Frank about Clinton and Sanders

     Former New York representative Barney Frank had some choice words for those of us progressives who are supporting Bernie Sanders for President.    We’re hurting Clinton’s campaign.   We’re playing into the hands of the GOP.    Yadda.   Yadda.   Yadda.   

     On Facebook, where I initially saw this post, I stated that if Bernie really wanted to hurt the Democrats, he would have run as a 3^rd party or independent candidate.    He would do precisely what Donald T-Rump is threatening to do (and considering the ego on the T-Rump, I would not put it past him.)  But he ran as a Democrat, exactly so that he does not play the role of spoiler.  

     Let’s look at Frank’s  sentiments a bit deeper, however.    Since Bernie is running as a Dem for the reason I state above, why would he make such a statement?   For one, Sanders' increasing popularity, in large part because of his populist message and his reputation for backing up his words with deeds, is considered a threat to those that actually own and operate this country – people for whom Hillary shills for.    Thus, in order to maintain her admittedly sizable lead in the polls, she has to pivot to the left, stretching her triangulation skills to their breaking point.   Perhaps she is being forced to write rhetorical checks for which her actions, record, and personal philosophy will not be able to cash – she knows it, the Democratic corporate establishment knows it, and Barney Frank certainly knows it. 

     This episode is but one byproduct of the country creaking back toward the left side of the cultural pendulum.  We begin to see more and more of these outsider vs. insider battles.   The concern I have is whether or not the progressives have enough of a political backstop in order to sufficiently support their candidates on a national level.    Progressives are the outsiders in this equation, and have been throughout much of our nation’s history.   The money does not flow to progressives as it does with the establishment, being backed by businesses who crave stability as opposed to change.   Also, the institutions who formed the progressive base have largely been destroyed or rendered irrelevant – public education, labor unions, etc.  For these reasons, while I’ll continue to support Bernie, I honestly think that he will wind up serving as little more than a delivery person who supplies progressive votes to Hillary.  

     In order to create a more favorable environment for progressives to run and win on a national scale, we need to rebuild the progressive base on the local and state levels.   Seattle knew this – the $15 per hour minimum wage movement picked up quite a bit of steam after they passed their ordinance, led in large part by a new, openly Socialist city council member.   There are other localities who have extensive Progressive traditions, such as Santa Cruz and much of the San Francisco Bay Area, Austin, TX, and others.   But they are comparatively few and far between, largely because the Republicans figured this lesson out decades ago.   Ever since Barry Goldwater was destroyed in the 1964 Presidential Election, there has been a concerted effort to load up city councils, school boards, county commissioner boards, and other local governmental bodies with loyal conservatives – a tactic that lead ultimately to the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.  

So what to do?

1.      Run progressive candidates on the state and local levels;

2.      Don’t depend on traditional media outlets to get the message out – rely on independent media, the Web, and good ol’ word of mouth;

3.      Think long term – the Repubs did this, the Progressives will need to do the same;

4.     Accept the fact that some of the changes that Progressives seek may not be realized in our individual lifetimes.   Remember that this isn’t about US as much as it is about OUR KIDS and future generations.   It’s a natural inclination for us to want our kids to have a better shot than we did – it’s only right that we continue holding that mindset.