A man recently fired from a Target store barged into the Arkansas Democratic headquarters Wednesday and fatally shot the state party chairman before speeding off in his pickup. Police later shot and killed the suspect after a 30-mile chase.Police identified the suspect as 50-year-old Timothy Dale Johnson of Searcy, a town about 50 miles northeast of Little Rock. They said that moments after the shooting, Johnson pointed a handgun at a worker at the nearby Arkansas Baptist headquarters. An official there said he told the worker, “I lost my job.”

It occurs to me that this killing of Bill Gwatney, head of the Democratic Party of Arkansas, counts as an Assassination.  This is a little odd, because we tend to think of assassinations as being aimed at heads of state — it’s Lincoln – Garfield – McKinley – Kennedy and the misfire at Ford (of all presidents) and Reagan.  And that Archduke whose assassination started World War One, but when you think of it if the assassination of that archduke was enough to set off a world war, the world’s political situation was fragile enough for a “if not one thing than another” situation.

Nonetheless, this distraught individual — reportedly a quiet man who kept to himself a lot and was something of a loner — sought out the head of the Arkansas Democratic Party, and … Assassinated him.  For what grandiose political reason, I do not know — probably shaky reasoning, at best — actually almost certainly shaky reasoning at best.  The reasoning is “undetermined”.  I understand that Gwatney was a relatively well known political figure — former state Senator, as these state party heads tend to be — but who assassinates a party functionary?

It brings me to mind the recent shooting of the Unitarian Church, where a distraught unemployed truck driver at the end of his welfare benefits, and a massive fan of various talk radio programs — and here I note specifically Michael Savage — hated the Liberals and Homosexuals and took it out on that church.  That is an act of Terrorism, and two makes for a disturbing sign.

I point out Michael Savage because it’s impossible for me now  not to listen to his vitrol and allusions to what must be done to “Liberals” without thinking about that Unitarian Church shooting.  Yes, I know Michael Reagan waxed poetic on his desire to kill a particular 9/11 Truther and wants to summarily kill Palestinian babies, but Savage gets the honor of being the heir apparent to the legacy of Father Coughlin.

Anyway, the local paper recently published some letters from Unitarians which I knew would garner a response such as this:

  With the recent church shooting by a “conservative,” I have noticed a surge of angry liberals attempting to blame conservatives for all that is wrong in the world. The truth is, there are good and bad people of all stripes. I read plenty opinion articles in The Oregonian written by liberals that I would consider angry and prejudiced. And some of the most hate-filled radio can be heard on Air America.      
        As a former Democrat, I would ask that these people look at their own sins before they start casting stones at others.
        MARK TURNER

 All very interesting.  Pox on both their houses, ye say?  Actually I think Liberal Elitism falls more in the lines of a sad forlorn pity and a thumping of some sense of Superiority.

Anyway, two times — unless you want to put a certain conspiracy tinge on the Anthrax threats of 2001, and a conspiracy tinge is warranted in that case, just perhaps not that conspiracy tinge, in which case it would be three times, and that makes for a hefty lunge time besides– does that make a trend?

“How long do you give Obama?”

“Oh, about as long as Kennedy.”

And so goes a conversation, which runs on to me arguring that Bobby Kennedy in 1968 (same conspiracy that caught his brother, and I was referring to John in referencing with my slightly glib statement, which I don’t necessarily subscribe to — Lord Willing he serves out two fantastic terms in office and Saves the World and everything) wasn’t going to be nominated.  But what is curious is to reflect on something from the McCain camp, which is an urging that it’s important for him because, you know…

… So, you see, Obama = John Kennedy Assassination and McCain = um, William Henry Harrison — then our oldest president and susceptible to pnuemonia.

It should make for a Battle of Youtube “not connected to the campaign” commercials, hinting wildly at these possibilities.  I am not sure how to make it work for McCain, though — the possibility with Obama is to press Obama up against some Kennedy shots which include his assassination.  The most obvious paralel with McCain is a now obscure president from the goddamned Whig Party.  Perhaps Reagan’s late term dementia could be emphasized, but that would only help him amongst Reagan-yearning Republicans.  Hm.  It’s a thought.

It seemed about time someone made that PUMA – Larouche connection.  Except it appears Larouche loses, as this coverage float-over is one removed, over to Webster Tarpley.  (Or does that mean Tarpley loses, as he cannot be mentioned without mention of his Larouche connection as a necessary explication?)  But the vibe remains, and to quote someone from The Atlantic:

“Don’t know if you guys saw this. It kinda made my day. More on the nuts that comprise PUMA here. It gets ill. I’m talking Lyndon Larouche/”Exterminate Jew Power” ill. Hmm, my guess is that these guys aren’t team players on the lam–but nuts filing into the asylum.”

Rubbish, Rubbish, Rubbish.  I mean, I do not believe Gary Genazzio was Jewish.

[Pause.]

So, in review, being for the benefit of the wikipedia-checking David Weigel for a bit more: Webster Tarpley renounced his association with Larouche (as seen here), referred to his organization as a “Maoist Cult”, but has carried on a parallel path of disseminating the exact same conspiratorial blather as Larouche (sans the omnipresent mention of the name), only with access to more arenas in the kook-o-sphere than can be afforded to Larouche — widely known now as, um, leading what is essentially a Maoist Cult.  (Larouche does sneak into the People’s Daily in China on occasion.) I do not know if this makes Tarpley an affiliate, successful spin-off, or if Jeff Steinberg and Webster Tarpley are involved in some mushroom-induced grand conspiracy of their own.

And now he jumps from his perch at “9/11 Truth” over to that odd Hillary Clinton Personality Cult that is PUMA, where he can propagate past some imagined and un-examined grievances over the Democratic Party nominating process and on to the key-pin of George Soros and Zbigniew Brzezinski.  And perhaps sell some copies of his on-some-best-sellers-list anti-Obama “Post Modernist Coup” book?  (Incidentally, thumb through the Brzenski-Russia-hating thesis and do the work yourself of parsing out Obama, Clinton, and McCain’s tact right now visa-vie Russia/Georgia.)

In other news of… this variety, Dennis King, after a fairly lengthly absence, some new material for his “newest postings” update.  Quote:

Lyndon LaRouche tells us how to conquer the world in one easy lesson. The text of this 1978 article–the most extreme version of the Fantasy Hitler’s “Great Design”–is accompanied by comments (in brackets) that expose, paragraph by paragraph, his appalling ignorance of history, his attempts to block all independent thinking by his followers, his obsession with plots by Jewish bankers, his use of code language, and the malignant narcissism that underlies his eagerness for a war of world conquest to be commanded by himself as President/Philosopher King of the Neoplatonic Humanist Republic of America.

I have to admit my reaction to this hyperbolic description was: “All very much true, but… So?”  It’s a little easy to get jaded on failed potential president/philosopher kings of neoplatonic humanist republic of americas.

I am tempted to link to, say, a transcript of a debate with a “PUMA” blogger from NPR, but I see no real reason to bother.

A moment of absurdity with Joseph Lieberman.  As Lieberman and Graham are being flown out to Georgia on behalf of McCain for no real reason, Lieberman chips in with a campaign statement of praise.  Everyone is focusing on the sentence about how McCain is the one candidate who “always puts America first” , but flip forward a ways to the relatively straight-forward:

And watch the response of this man, John McCain, to that crisis: right, strong, clear, principled.

I’ll get back to him when I can figure out why I’m supposed to be impressed by Actions in a context where by definition neither candidate is in a position to do much acting.  But maybe the body politik will respond favorably?

This is something of a preliminary skeletal framework for the story which will eventually end up being put together on the fall of the Hillary Clinton Presidential Campaign.   A few things strike me on the laying bare of the internal strategizing and the various junctures of the campaign.  If you had asked at any juncture what was pounded in the strategy memos, anyone would have been able to hazard a reasonably accurate surmisation — such are the bright outlines of rather stark and unsubtle messaging.  Which, I suppose, is fine.  Advertising is a cynical business which purchases our dreams at a cheap price and sells them back to us at a steep mark – up, and political campaigns may be even more cynical in the way they slice and dice into our prejudices.  But at least they take of our dreams, which is more than can be said about the Red Soviets!

Oh Kay.

More pointedly is the manner the pundit classes report with about the same terminology the themes of the campaign.  Here we get into the theme of the “Forgotten Americans” and (ahem) Clinton being hte candidate for “People With Needs” — as opposed to the wistfully airy and ungrounded Obama and his danged “Movement”.  This is something that Hillary Clinton and her surrogates were not going to speak explicitly — the Welfare State is nothing anyone wants to be defined as a part of and this fails the test of Aspirational Politics (and policy) — but nonetheless it was suggested strongly enough in the campaign that it could be picked up by a column by, say, Clinton supporter Maria Coe who can dissect the two candidates and say of the salt – of – the – earth Clinton supporters that they have zero interest in joining a so-called movement and are people “with needs”.  I have every expectation that she did not receive the memo, and yet the message was so transferred as to be picked up in much the same language.

Or take the analysis of why the Hillary Clinton campaign nearing her last gasps seemed apathetic on the prospect of them hurting the then-probably Obama campaign’s general election chances.  Stated simply, somewhere or other, in a published column, they don’t think Obama can win anyway and thus can’t harm the chances of a hopeless candidate.  What do you know — Mark Penn states categorically that Obama is unelectable and the Republicans know it.  Was this stated publically by any surrogate?  Of course not.  Yet to observe the campaign was to pick up on this essential tenant of the campaign’s strategic thinking, and to report it.

But I guess at this point we can just shout “Yes We Will” and be done with it.  The great irony is that all through most of 2007 the conjealing conventional wisdom was that Hillary Clinton’s campaign was steady and sure and Obama had basically made that giant splash, wracking up a huge poll number which then dissipated against the sure steady Clinton machine — not letting those external issues get the best of her.  As it turned out in the primary season, Obama’s campaign was the steady one, surfing easily and confidentally through Clinton’s late surge in Appalachia, and the Jeremiah Wright problem, pointedly squarely at his aim.  But then again Clinton was in a position where she needed the reshuffling, so maybe things would look differently in an alternate universe.

A few items in the Oregonian’s editorial pages have caught my eye in regards to “signs” of the Great Unraveling of the Sociological Economy.  Item number one was one of those “Annoying Unsigned Editorials” the Oregonian publishes which tend to say nothing so much as state that an issue exists, the topic seemed rather randomly generated. I can only suspect that perhaps the author of this unsigned piece may be dealiing with it personally. “Boomerang Children”. The only thing I will say is that I suspect if one were to go through Lexis Nexus (Nexus Lexis?) and chart news mentions of “Boomerang Children” the peaks of the mentions would correspond to Recessionary Periods.

Item #2 and Item #3 sort of came together to me and were in the same eidition of the Oregonian, namely Sunday’s. Item #2 is an editorial by a DEBRA GWARTNEY touching on the evergreen subject of those kids’ damnable work ethic, as from a jarring false lesson to a young one from a moment in the movie “Kung Fu Panda.”   Apparently the problem is that the Kung Fu Panda has to sort of shift through his entry-level job unsatisfactorily en route to when that shift ends and he can partake in his real passion of ,um, Kung Fu Pandaing. Her compalaint on this score puzzles me somewhat, and here I refer to the “Major American Poet” Loverboy, probably if you click on your classic rock station right this second you will hear it, and I quote “Everybody’s Working for the Weekend.” There are a number of points of departure from this essay, but I will stick to this line:

The truth is, with the waning clout of a college education, the squeezing of student loans and a shortage of ladder-climbing professional positions, a huge number of young people will spend their entire careers in the service industry: selling bluejeans at J.Crew or hot dogs at NFL games. They’ll wait on a public they’ll quickly learn to treat as a nuisance, and, more critically, they’ll fail to understand that if they want to grow into a better job, a more satisfying work life, then they must treat the one they have with at least some measure of respect.

The post – boldened lines suggests the level of compartmentalization to shoo away their job to get to the task of Kung Fu Pandaing, and the boldened part suggests one item: degraded job prospects (and for that matter, as per falling purchasing power) equally degraded job pride.

(My other point of departure is an interesting item of Attitude comparison, which is that in large numbers of service industries — the grocery store for instance, I puzzle over people’s strong attachment to facets of Customer Service.  I prefer Speed over Friendliness and could care less if the server cracks a smile, indeed prefer that they don’t — but maybe I just identify with the “meh”.  Perhaps things change in the case of a, say, a sit-down restaurant, but I’d have to quantify that a little bit.) 

Anyway, for the Employer the problem is easily solvable from the matter of Item #3, which I would link to if only the Oregonian’s website were user-friendly and I’d be able to find it on a dime.  See, the Three Legged Stool of Retirement — Savings, Pension, Social Security, now has a fourth Stool. RE-EMPLOYMENT!!! This is kind of interesting because as I recall back in the 1990s there was a bit of a crisis mongering causes over the specter of the encouragement and incentivizing of Early Retirement. Wait for the economic up-swing and perhaps we’ll get back to that.  Or maybe the sort of reshuffling of professionals into Wall-mart Greeters is just a part of the permanent Economic Order.  I don’t know.

I once heard the opinion expressed by someone or other:

“I am worried we’ll see that the Democratic Party decided to make history and thus failed to elect a president.”

Parce the meaning further, and this lands at John Edwards, the “Bronze Medalist” in the Democratic Primary Contest.  Before any of the primaries and caucuses, Edwards was consistently ahead of Clinton and Obama in terms of hypothetical match-ups with the Republican candidates — largely a matter of name recognition and Clinton’s high negatives.  But today we can pretty well state that Obama turned out more likely to be elected than Edwards.

Assuming Edwards’s affair controversy ends where he states it does, and on this I trust the National Enquirer which is when it states things unequivocally an accurate news tabloid, he still had an affair with a wife who just suffered through Cancer.  A personal matter to be sure, and on that score I wonder if this problem would be defusable with a 2007 press conference near the start of his primary campaigning, a pre-emptive admission of guilt, quick and not entirely painless, wife not at his side because the public has gotten sick of political wives propped up behind sunglasses, with the statement along the lines of:

“I gave into temptation last year and had a brief affair.  This is a personal matter between my family and I, and we have worked to put it behind us.  In the meantime, I will be waging a campaign for America’s future.  Thank you.”

Or something to that effect.  Clinton largely defused such matters in 1992 with a press conference, and the nation proceeded to elect a man nobody thought much of in such personal matters.  As it were John Edwards, if nominated, would currently be dogged by reporters, sinking in the polls, and we would be facing the John McCain presidency.  Interestingly, I thought that the controversy surfaced as Edwards was basically eliminated from contention, but looking back on this blog I see December 2007.   Damned it, the Edwards hypothetical is worse than I thought.

I picture some deveolopers showing off some overlays of plans for that particular spot.  One page you have there, next to Sho Dozono’s restaurant of some note or other, Peterson’s on Morrison.  Lining Peterson’s are exaggerated figures of hordes of drunkards urinating and sloshing along piles of vomit, running up to well coiffered innocents demands for spare change.  Flip over the overlay and a new vision is revealed — a much shinier exterior, friendly to tourists and suburbanites who are shown skipping along merrily as tax dollar revenues have come pouring out such that the sidewalks have been remade into solid Gold.  Peterson’s and that whole contraption have been blotted out into a black whole.

In this overlay, the businesses across the street have a giant “Question Mark” or “To be Determined”.  The first piece of this puzzle, after the construction of a parking garage, is a Brooks Brothers, a store front I have walked by without too much thought or notice just as surely as I have walked past Peterson’s with a similar dispensation to not walk in and buy anything.  Walk around the Brooks Brothers and what once looks like a quaint item — retro catalouge fashion spread — looks more sinister in light of our current Gentrification fight.  It has become a paen to the Gilden Age and a Dickensonian America.  Brooks Brothers moved in, evidentally, with the understanding that Peterson’s would be gone… one way or another.  Hence this gem of a quote in the Oregonian:

“I fail to see why a disgusting store such as Peterson’s is allowed to say open.  They cater to the dregs of the street of our city.”

Well, if so imagined, a simple question: where should the dregs of the street of our city buy a corn dog?  Back at around 82nd Street?  Where — in response to Max Line violence the city had responded by pumping up the police presence back over in Lake Oswego.

There are always these murmurs from certain corners of the city and surrounding areas to the effect that Portland has a, quote-in-quote “unfriendly business climate”.  These elements pesture every city with that complaint.  An immediate example that comes to mind, an occurence which took place right across the street from Peterson’s, was the city government’s somewhat apathetic response to the plight of Schumacher Furs, by all accounts a business on its down-swing.  The protesters parked themselves there and made themselves a long-term presence.  Those who made hay about the situation are the type liable today to side against this particular business, with your “Portland Business Alliance”, unfriendly to business they be when it is the wrong business.

The 5 – 4 vote which gives Peterson’s, quote-in-quote “One Last Chance” seems a postpoing of the inevitable.  Maybe it’s not, but I think everyone in any relationship (employment, academic, or personal) who is “granted” “one last chance” knows it is time to keep one eye ahead forward to their next path.  In a few days a homeless man will be poling in the public garbage for remnants of food and those two “Clean and Safe” quasi-cops I saw scribbling in a notebook this morning will scribble fast and furiously with a check-mark of an “Offense” made by Peterson’s.  Note that Peterson’s has almost comically tossed up sticker after sticker alerting everyone to their Survelliance Camera.  This should stop the Public Urination which the Brooks Brothers business apparently views as happening 24/7 at this spot.  The seemingly inevitable was drawn on that city developers’ overlay, along with the Golden Streets.  And it is written in the Oregonian’s casual use of the word “ne’erdowell”, not in an Opinion article mind you, but in a run of the mill news article.  (And who amongst us has not partaken in the act of ne’erdowelling?)

I’ve been meaning to come up with something to say about “PUMAS’, a grouping of Hillary Clinton supporters who hold grievances about Barack Obama and a set of demands that work their way from various grievances which come from backing a losing presidential candidate who they think should win.

PUMA is an acronym which means in its pac-forming formation “People United Means Action” and in its bloggier edgier formation “Party Unity My Ass”.  The more raucous version seems to stick, if this media mention is any evidence.

There really is nothing to say about them, even if it might be interesting to peak in and see what they are whipping up.  And incidental comedy inherent in, for instance, the advertising swarm sticking up a pro-Obama moveon ad on a “proud puma” blog.  (Maybe I ought do a screen-shot for the time sensitivity of this thing.)

As with celebrating the overthrown Shah of Iran back ini 1980, the Champion of Lost Causes that is Lyndon Larouche has floats in to claim the mantle of promoting Hillary Clinton, and dastardy Al Gore and George Soros-oriented Democratic Party Chieftain conspiracy theories on how the nomination was swatched from Obama to Clinton.  Such the case that someone somewhere links to them, and Larouchies are the most visible contingency in gatherings of “PUMA“s.

Understand, the British assassinated Abraham Lincoln.  And the PUMA movement is the ideological descendents of the Franklin Roosevelt campaign which defeated the banking collaboraters of Raskob and Alfred Smith (sort of the DLCers of their day), and Obama’s backers are the modern day Raskobs who were defeated at the 1932 convention.  (I mention the assassination of Lincoln because that is where the Larouche “1932” video which “PUMA Warrior”‘s article is part of a current program.)

So, Hillary Clinton will be voted to the Democratic nomination in the 4-day campaign infomercials that are the modern day political conventions.  Because the PUMAs demand it.  If she is not, that’s just because of the dastardly George Soros.

And PUMA is lead by the vanguard Lyndon Larouche organization who will storm the convention and nominate Hillary Clinton.

I don’t know really how much of a presence to ascribe Lyndon Larouche in with a whole mass of “PUMA”s, but given the rather spare number of that movement — you have to look to find them, at best they’ll get this sort of ceremonial casting of Hillary Clinton votes at the convention which will be clocked in a manner to avoid having any media focus on those proceedings as opposed to the speeches — I don’t know why I shouldn’t just shrug and say… Lyndon Larouche… the Leader of the PUMA movement.  (Or is that too danged mean?)  Whatever, once you’ve concocted a narrow anti-Hillary Clinton bias in the Democratic nominating process you aren’t on level ground anyway.