Eddie Vedder has about the best protest song I’ve heard during the troubles…
It goes through several of the top guns in George W. Bush-league’s administration, saying:
“Here’s to the land you tore out the heart of…”
and
“[official name] go find another country to be part of.”
This pretty much sums up my feeling about our asshole president and his cast of thieves. Unlike Michelle Obama, I cannot be proud of this country as long as those pricks lord over us.
OK… so now Yahoo is taking all sorts of heat for wanting to remain independent of Microsoft’s grip. Is it so true that the highest form of corporate existence is to be acquired by a bigger company?
While we’re all familiar with smaller fish getting eaten by bigger fish and smaller animals falling prey to larger animals, it isn’t clear to me that being so consumed is the highest purpose of each animal. If so, then there would have to be something at the end of it all, eating the big fish… and I doubt that humanity is it.
This leads me to an alternative theory of god - one where god is the next bigger evolutionary creature. God’s purpose is to consume us, just like we consume fish and animals, who consume other fish and animals. Could that be it? We’re just a link in god’s food chain?
Today’s news report finally pushed me over the edge with regard to the Clinton campaign. After whining about sexism - and OK, I acknowledge that it exists, but where was the acknowledgment that Obama suffers both racism and misplaced anti-muslim behavior - she goes on and says that she’s in the race because “you never know what might happen” evoking the memory of Bobby Kennedy.
Geeze. Wasn’t it her that said that only she could get the vote of white working class voters? Wasn’t it she who pandered to every religious, social, ethnic and gender group out there? Wasn’t it she who violated the election rules in both Florida and Michigan? You can bet your bottom rupee that if she was on the other side of the table, she’d be arguing about how Obama can’t now expect to bend the rules.
The problem with Hillary is the same problem that we have with Bush - that moral and ethical relativity is taken to an extreme. Certainly, no one realistically expects complete honesty from their elected officials, but the bald-faced disingenuousness of her bullshit is only equaled by the moral torpor of the Bush white house.
This candidate needs to simply shut up and go away. Period.
I’m watching Fox News - now we have a boogie man… “Black Liberation Theology.” They had some minister, Rob Shenck, talking about how it is “out of the mainstream” and even “advocates violence” … ohhh… scary…. and maybe even touches on, get this, Marxism.
Can you say “inquisition?” War in Iraq? War in many places? War friggin everywhere?
Lets see… christianity was used to keep blacks down… to enslave them. To kill Jews. To kill Indians. To kill Muslims. So what’s so different about this?
Frankly, if a community is being violently oppressed - then what’s wrong with a little violence to stop it?
How else are we going to stop these f*cking right-wing nut jobs? The folks who are using this war in Iraq to oppress the American middle class? Are we the last group to stand silently and take it up the ass? Maybe someone really does need to stand up and say “enough” and have something behind it.
EE
I’ve been traveling a lot recently. Traveling gives me the opportunity to do things that I don’t often get to do in my coastal megapolis - including reading USA Today.
I particularly like the letters to the editor - and particularly when they touch on religion. One recent letter talked about how an editorial “offended god.” What, god called him up and said “you’re offending me!”? Yeah, right.
And also last week, on Glen Beck (one of the most useless wastes of satellite bandwidth), some guy was talking about how the end times are near. How this shit gets on CNN is beyond me!
OK… so, we don’t need to worry about the war, the recession or the environment. The End Times are Nigh… so, in the inimitable words of Alfred E. Newman, “What, Me Worry?”
I’m reading with interest the controversy over Obama’s minister, Jeremiah Wright. Much of the controversy seems to be whether he is “anti-American” or racist. I think not.
First, let me say that I am neither black nor Christian. I don’t come from either of those traditions, nor do I embrace any religious tradition (in fact, I am a non-believer). But, I do think that we, as a nation, have deluded ourselves on several major issues - issues that Rev. Wright points out (with much criticism).
1) The US commits terrorism. What is terrorism? Why is it different from our acts? Does anyone think that our mortal enemies would have crashed passenger jetliners into buildings if they had B-52’s? Of course not. They would have sat there at a comfortable 45,000 feet pushing buttons and dropping tons of bombs. That’s what we do to them. Why is our action justified and theirs not? I simply don’t understand.
2) The US committed sins against blacks. Yes. This is obvious. It still does. Duh.
3) The government has conspired to keep the black community down. Duh, again… of course they have.
This stuff is obvious. The problem is that no one wants to hear it. That’s it.
EE
OK… so I’m listening to Carribean Gospel Radio on iTunes and this song comes on with a chorus of “Shake that Booty in the Name of the Lord.” This is the way that religion, if it has any value at all, should exist. To free up the inner soul, the inner emotion - not to constrain.
Note that religion to me has little, if anything, to do with actual social mores. I, for one, am a reasonably good person (with a few faults, but greed and avarace aren’t part of it). My family are all good people, too. We do it without religion (yes, my children are being brought up without religious structure). My spouse is a believer, but I am not.
But then again, I don’t identify with biblical suffering. My bush never burned. I never hung on any cross. I didn’t have to slay my firstborn. This stuff has little relevance, in my mind, to the modern world.
What does have relevance is the possibility of waking up long-sleeping parts of me, the parts that do respond to group emotions, the parts that do want to feel a sense of community, the parts that want to “Shake My Booty” - maybe not in the name of the lord, but shake it anyhow.
That is, if my back goes back in 
At one point, I worked for a health insurer (actually, I’ve worked for several). The most obnoxious among them has a political action committee for its employees dedicated to “preserving choice” in the health care system.
But who’s choice? Certainly, not the individual’s choice, in the main. No, it is the choice of the large employers, mostly.
And then there is the retroactive disenrollment (recision for the uninitiated). That’s where they sell someone a policy, wait for them to get sick, then cancel the policy retroactively to its issuance and seek to get the money back. And yes, it is a programmatic effort.
Consumers claim that the applications are complex and misleading (they are). Insurers claim that the policy holders lie (some do). But this is a mess - and really goes to the heart of insurance “choice.” Now we know who has the choice - the people who sell the policy and then, two years later, try to claim a mulligan.
And privatization is good, right? I can’t wait for socialism to return!
I started the election cycle a solid fan of Hillary Clinton. After all, my life was better during the Clinton years than any years since, and since I have two kids, I would want the improvements in their lives to occur too. Plus, I really think we need single-payer health care (more on that in another post) and believe that she’s the only one who could bring that home.
But Hillary couldn’t have done a better job of botching a campaign. This will go down in history as one of the worst campaigns ever - and now I’m a solid fan of Mr. Obama.
What did she do wrong?
Every time I see John McCain on television, I think about my time in Florida, surrounded by the geriatric crowd. Sure, they make him up from the front - a little rouge to make the cheeks look healthy, a touch-up here and there, etc.
But when you catch a glimpse of him from behind, you see a guy who should be waiting for a bus in Delray Beach, Florida. Someone who, if is “plumbing” still works, will get casseroles brought to him nightly, someone who drives a white Grand Marquis - and peers through the space between the dashboard and the top of the steering wheel.
I’m sure that Washington’s restaurants are bracing for the onslaught of 4pm diners - after all, even state dinners will be early-bird specials. Certainly, McCain will win the “Wal-Mart Greeter” vote - but the rest of us? No.
The other thing is that McCain spent a few years in Hanoi. No doubt, he was a military hero - but have you seen the Manchurian Candidate? Watch the first one… and ponder the possibilities.
Is this what we want for President?
