It's My Blogiversary, I Suppose I Ought To Write Something Abot It...

It was four years ago today. For the life of me, I can't recall why I bothered...

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Rook's Rant hit its five-year mark the other day. Congratulations to him. Someday, I'd like to play a few rounds of chess with Rook. Chances are I'll get my ass handed to me, but it wouldn't be the first time...

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Red State Blues of BlondeSense has told me several times over the last two years that she likes my political analytical skills. I think that's a highly unusual and generous compliment to give a guy who didn't know jack shit about politics until this spring. And as for what I learned, well, that's too depressing to relate at any time -- let's just call me sadder but wiser and be done with it...

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One last time, thank you, Scorpio, Rez Dog, Ghost, Big Brother, Rainbow Demon, and the penguin who sold me the MacBook for helping to carry the Medley this far -- it would have run its course a long time ago without the support you all gave it.

And let's never forget the contributions, to both the Medley and my heart, of the best blogtopian patron a hopelessly bird-brained blogger could ever ask for. I wish I could have been a better co-blogger for him than I turned out to be...

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I'm not entirely through with politics. Just the Medley. You live, you learn...

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I'm over here now. Take it or leave it...

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Lastly, this may surprise you, but a massive chunk of my lost faith in the intelligence and wisdom of the American people has been replenished in the last few weeks. I don't know how to explain it, though. Maybe it's just because I'm a slow learner -- it took me far too long to realize that I was being had, so maybe I'm just coming to terms with ceasing to be a hypocrite on this score. The powers that be pluck out our eyes, their puppets (both the conscious and the sleepwalking) tell us it's our own damn fault we're blind, and we fucking believe them. But only for a while -- most of us catch on to this bullshit sooner or later. This dynamic is all but self-evident in the way the Democratic race has played out. To make a long story short: I feel very, very sorry for Hillary Clinton. She made the one mistake no one should ever make in any endeavor: she turned into the monster she was battling...

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So, where do I go from here?

Hell if I know. You'll just have to drop in on Mockingbird Jim now and then for a shot at the answer to that.

Til further on... but not here.

"...And maybe I had miles to drive, and promises to keep...

...you ditch them all to stay alive, a thousand kisses deep"...

It's an Ill Wind that Blows No Good

Some Burmese have noted how slow the military government has been to react to the cyclone devastation compared to its rapid and effective response to the demonstrations last fall. If the Burmese are lucky, the cyclone may also mortally wound a truly odious regime.

This Time, It's Real.

So much for my second wind.

I can't understand why I keep falling for the notion that politicians would ever have more than their own self-preservation in mind whenever they say whatever they have to say. I just keep falling for it. There's only one thing left to do: hang it up. Before I say something I really regret to someone who still considers me a friend.

No teh douchebaggery here. Just me trying to step aside with whatever grace I have left.

Nothing's going to change beginning in January. And that's all I have left to say here.

Best of luck.

Of Camels and the Eyes of Needles...

I've been had. Boy, have I been had.

And now I'm getting exactly what I deserve, in the forms of frustration, disillusion, disgust, and humiliation.

I take back everything I've said about Barack Obama giving the best speech since Martin Luther King had a dream. I take back everything I've said about being glad I voted for Obama in Virginia's primary. I withdraw, once and for all, every last bit of support for the Democratic Party I've granted it. I don't like being used, I don't like seeing others being used, and I don't care what befalls a political party that manipulates people at a time when most of those people are inclined to trust that party in doing whatever it can to repair what's been wantonly broken.

Go read Chris Floyd and Arthur Silber if you want to know why. Not all that long ago, I thought little of Obama, dismissing him as a corporatist Democrat. His "A More Perfect Union" speech in Philadelphia impressed me -- at the time. And I started to give him more and more credence -- the more I heard him talk, the more I liked him.

Stupid me.

On Monday, Jeremiah Wright went on the Toob with Bill Moyers and said a bunch of things that made Obama look like a fool for defending him in March. So Obama formally cut Wright loose. Originally, I thought that Obama had no other choice, and left it at that. Bad decision.

What I should have done was go and see what Wright actually said, rather than taking Obama's word merely because he'd been impressing me almost without fail for several weeks. Again, go read Floyd and Silber -- they have it right, I got it all wrong. And to everyone who took my side, I am very sorry for misleading you so badly.

I have more to say. But right now, I have to unscramble it...

I Have a Higher Tolerance Threshold That I Thought I Did...

As of April 30, I no longer have an upstairs neighbor. He's moved on to wherever -- I never asked him where he was going, and he never told me. All I knew was that sooner or later, my apartment complex's refurbishers were going to start gutting the vacated premises and installing new appliances, cabinets, bathroom fixtures, and rugs.

It has turned out to be sooner. You need to hear the infernal din these friggin' guys are making up there to believe it. I've had five or six different upstairs neighbors since I've lived here, and each time one of them moved out, people came in and re-did the whole apartment. I have never heard as much noise within this building as I'm hearing right now. It's sounds like they're waging a battle royale, taking turns throwing the dishwasher at each other or something. I'm waiting for the ceiling to cave in on my head.

It's a good thing I don't have to work toninght. I might not be feeling so tolerant right now if I had to...

Is This a Joke?

Somebody please tell me they aren't serious about doing this:

Disneyland goes to war-torn Iraq, with a multi-million dollar entertainment complex, to be built on a 50 acre lot adjacent to the Green Zone. ("Fun park rises from ruins of Baghdad zoo", the Times, London, 24 April 2008)

The American-style amusement park will feature a skateboard park, rides, a concert theatre and a museum.

The occupation forces are of the opinion that Baghdad is "lacking in entertainment." General David Petraeus, is said to be a "big supporter" of bringing Disneyland to Baghdad.

Fox News considers the project as a "market signal that the arrow is pointing up: ...We should not refuse to take notice when good things are happening in Iraq. Item number one, a Los Angeles entrepreneur said he plans to invest millions to create a vast entertainment and amusement complex in the center of downtown Baghdad." (Fox News, April 26, 2008)...

What?

Umm... Well... Uuhhh.....

What?!

I'm Curious...

Is anyone else having "scheduling" issues with Blogger?

I'll Tell You What Happened to Blogtopia (part whatever -- I don't see the point in keeping track of them anymore)...

Earlier today, I was checking in on some of the folks in my blogroll (try not to faint), and I came across this:

...That sounds like the old Bob Parry, the one I respected and trusted...

That would be the Bob Parry of Consortium News. I love Consortium News, and I have a trainload of respect for Parry. I also have a trainload of respect for the guy who no longer respects Parry: BartCop.

BartCop broke my heart this morning. And he did it at a very bad time. There are two explanations why, the more important one of them I'll keep to myself for now -- I need some time to make that one at least semi-coherent. The minor one concerns the Democratic infighting between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and where Parry and Bart stand on this.

Bart is a staunch supporter of Senator Clinton; Parry sees her pretty much the same way I do now. The thing is, both men have been fighting the good fight on these Internets for a long time -- Parry for thirteen years, Bart for twelve -- and they used to be real tight. Very recently, in fact. I don't know what Parry's take on this is, but I do know that he and Bart used to promote the hell out of each other on their websites. That's over now. They've parted ways over Hillary Clinton -- blogtopia doesn't get more fucked up than that.

But even though I strongly disagree with BartCop when it comes to Hillary Clinton, I don't think any less of him because of that. I still trust and respect him as I have for the few years I've known of him, just like I do Robert Parry -- even though I can get pretty passionate and wild-assed when trashing Hillary, I still think of it as nothing more than a personal difference between me and those who don't share my views.

My incredible naivete must be showing here, because I guess I had this assumption that Bart's standards were higher than my own, solely by virtue of him having been doing his thing three times longer than I've been doing my own. It's possible that I was flat out wrong...

Something We Don't Hear Much Of...

Bringing back the country's manufacturing base. Excellent idea -- this service-based set-up of ours just ain't cuttin' it on its own. But before I get to the gist of the article, I have to post this paragraph:

...Real change means a mix of Bill Clinton in 1992, FDR in 1932, and the innovation and mindset of the 21st Century. Since the realm of media and society are so dominated by the corporate/right-wing structure, a few Clintonian morsels will have to be tossed their way. Think of it like raw meat to lions to distract them while the real work gets done.

That won't cut it on its own, either. I'd try this: toss 'em the meat regularly, but stuff some powerful sedatives in it first. Let's put Big Pharma to good use for a change. That ought to keep them occupied for several years -- I'm more interested in keeping the lions from distracting us, personally. Now back to the article...

We have a crumbling infrastructure, so we need similar programs to FDR's work programs in the 1930s. Newt Gingrich and 12 years of Republican rule in Congress did a lot of damage to what makes this country great.

But we also need someone who understands that the new "job program" is about taking advantage of the fact that the average consumer is more concerned abot the environment and will accept alternative energies. The new president has to be able to work with Al Gore to implement true change. And those workers in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana also need one more thing: they need to make something tangible.

Miss this one step and you don't get the complete picture. Making a new road or creating solar energy are wonderful, but the workers of the Midwest need to point to something and say, "I made that." {my emphasis}

That salient point compliments what Scorpio said about the nation's infrastructure a little while ago. And pride has a whole lot to do with it, so it is definitely not relevant to just four states...

The American manufacturing spirit reached its peak when it could point to the clothes on their backs, and the cars they drove with pride. This new direction could easily be electric cars (not hydrogen). It doesn't have to be huge in numbers, but Americans want to buy tangible elements that they made. Bring that back and the Democratic Party can rule for a long time, and make real lasting change.

Here's another idea to help make that happen, and it's aimed right at the Democrats. Want to win more elections? Then get rid of those fucking consultants already. Just dump 'em. All of them. Now. We can put them to work in the new factories later, teach them useful trades. If they don't like that, you can threaten to have them arrested for serial highway robbery instead (Senator Clinton, please pick up your goddamned office phone if it's still cool enough to handle). Give 'em a choice -- compulsory community service assembling electric railroad cars and earning a respectable hourly wage, or hard time in jail making license plates for nadadamthing. I'm sure they'll make the wiser choice...

Question of the Day...

Assuming Hillary Clinton overcomes all the obstacles in her way and wins the Democratic nomination, would she actually deserve it?

Fifty Shots

I haven't posted on the Sean Bell shooting verdict, where four cops (two black) were acquitted of murder in a case where they killed an unarmed man and wounded two of his friends. Bell's family demands that those responsible for their son's death be punished. The problem is, if that's what justice is, the problem isn't four cops. The problem is visible in the mirror every morning.

The problem, in essence, is that America has become a nation of cowards. Virtually each and every one of us demands safety at all points in our daily lives. We cower in terror of dusky black people who want to kill us, dusky brown people overseas who want to kill us, we demand ever more and better safety equipment to be imposed on everybody to protect everybody from harm, we have, in essence, become the most pussified nation on the planet. Oh yes, there are exceptions, like random motorcycle-riding desert penguins and folks who volunteer to join the U.S. Army knowing that people are going to shoot at them. But by and large, we have become a nation of spineless invertebrates with all the backbone of a jellyfish.

And so we demand that our police forces punish more and more of those brown people who scare us. Worse yet, we join police forces and are ourselves scared by brown people and do whatever it takes to eliminate even the slightest possibility that we might actually be injured or even killed while doing our job. Even those of us who are brown. And so you get a case where an undercover cop misheard something, thought Bell was going for a gun, and opened fire and his backup thinking Bell was firing themselves opened fire, and a man is dead and four cowards are charged with being cowards for, well, doing what pretty much any of us in Spineless America would have done if we were armed with a gun and a get-out-of-jail-free card entitled "I thought he had a gun". After all, why wait until you're sure he has a gun? Then he might shoot you!

So I view the whole Sean Bell thing as sort of a microcosm of the nation as a whole, shooting the wrong people out of fear that some day, some how, they might shoot us first. Sean Bell died for the same reason that a million Iraqis have died -- because America is, at its very essence, today a nation of cowards. We've been too fat, too complacent, too... bought... for too long, and have let it go to our heads to the point where each and every one of us believes we are the most important person on the planet, much too important to do anything risky like, well, verify that Saddam has no WMD or Sean Bell has no gun. So all I can do is shake my head at the Sean Bell verdict. Those four cops who thought their own safety was more important than Sean Bell's safety should not be police officers, they should be sandwich artists or soda jerks or someplace where being scared all the time isn't a professional liability, but if we are to send everyone to jail who is responsible for the death of Sean Bell, that's gonna be a whole lot of barbed wire... and the streets of America would be strangely quiet, until the day that the forests took them back over and the sound of birds and animals at play reclaimed their ruins.

-- Badtux the Saddened Penguin