I'm back with more chewy and crunchy bits for your mastication...
Baltimore
What else can there be said that already hasn't been? Who out there is actually surprised that mass demonstrations would take place? This is what happens when you combine economic and social apartheid with police brutality and a court system slanted to favor the (white) elite. When the gap between the rich and everybody else gets wide enough, you start seeing episodes like this.
And this, I fear, may just be the beginning.
Time Magazine's most recent cover depicts a black-and-white photo of a man running away from a phalanx of police officers with a caption of America - 1968, with the 1968 struck out in favor of 2015. The related article,
The Roots of Baltimore's Riots, contains a subtitle that says that decades of systemic failure led us to this point. It looks like it's worth a read - I usually stay away from Time as I find them to be too corporate-friendly.
More to come on this later.
Bernie
When one looks at his positions, he seems to be in line with the vast majority of America. When he talks the talk about corporate campaign corruption, he walks the walk by refusing corporate campaign cash. When he talks about what this country needs, he has concrete plans (literally, such as in infrastructure spending). He is no friend to the Banks and Corporate America, exactly the opposite of Hillary Clinton. He's not a millionaire - unlike most of the puppets in Washington. His appeal in Vermont is across party lines - hard-line Republicans voted for him as well as Democrats and Independents. What's not to like, right? He seems almost too good to be true.
Foxy News is already trying to marginalize him. It will be a matter of time before MSNBS gets their fangs into him. Chickenshit Noise Network should be following suit soon, if they haven't already. His only real friends in the media will likely be the non-Corporate outlets: Aljazeera, RT, Real News Network, and the like. The corporate media are owned by the very people that Bernie stands against, and against whose interests he works. Big Media favors the TPP, Bernie is against. Big Media hates Net Neutrality, Bernie supports it. Big Media wants their taxes and regulations squeezed down to bathtub-size, Bernie wants to raise both of them. He is a diametric polar-opposite to Big Media's interests.
His big problem is breaking through the Big Media smokescreen without having to sell out or compromise to do so. If he and his supporters can do this (I may send some $$$ his way, BTW), he might have a shot. The big question here is - IF.
Boehner's BS
Democratic Underground
had a post about John Boehner stating that Hillary needed to get behind the TPP and get Dems to go along with it. Once again, this condescending drunk is trying to tell the Dems how to govern (he's done similar with Obama several times before.) His constituents must love him, because in a lot of other places he's coming off as precisely the folksy-talking jerk that he is.
Here's what I find interesting. Where are the Tea Freaks in all of this? Are they actually willing to stand idly by and allow their representatives to give Fast Track approval authority to this president - the man they hate so much (their support for TPP and Fast Track is near-unanimous)? Why are the Repubs pushing this so hard? Does this speak to their ideas about their 2016 prospects, with the motley crew they have (again)? And why is Obama pushing this so hard NOW? Is he calculating that any delay will wrap this further and further into the 2016 campaign, to the point where no action will take place? If this is the strategy - do without delay - then perhaps the strategy to defeat this would be precisely to delay it as long as possible.
Comments are welcome. More to come later.
