John McCain: Here we have Al-Jazeera showing that shot over and over again without a mention of the shooting in the head of this brave woman who spent her life trying to help Iraqi people. Shame on Al-Jazeera. Shame on that organization. They know–we now know that they’re just a propaganda organ–they can no longer call themselves news or any kind of purveyor of anything but propaganda. And if I’m angry about it, I think all Americans are angry about it.

McCain’s correct. Al Jazeera shouldn’t take such an isolated incident out of context and show it again and again.

They need to stick to the more mundane killing of innocent civilian Iraqi life that the Coalition of the Willing engages in (not particularly on purpose, but in the land of “inevitibility”).

What seems to be today’s antiwar position — it was a terrible mistake and it’s a terrible mess, but we can’t just walk away from it — was actually the pro-war position during Vietnam. In fact, it was close to official government policy for more than half the length of that war.

Take that observation and do what you want with it. Maybe it’s best that the “antiwar candidate” Howard Dean couldn’t get a foot into the door of the presidency — he can maintain his luster out of power a lot better without compromising it with a sentiment of “Must see it through”.

Not that semantics clear the way for me… I’m not part of a “movement”.

Parts of the problem is in the difficulty of maintaining a demonization of the enemy. Nazi Germany provided us with an easy out: there were no innocents in Nazi Germany, the entire citizenry was corrupted and de facto Hitleristas. With Iraq, (as with Vietnam, though there we could move into a position of ‘why do I care what the Viet Cong does to them?’), they’re “innocents” who have been “liberated” — and if they keep fighting after being liberated (screw your “dead-ender”/ “flooded from oversees” etc etc crap)…

The narrative falls apart.

Skip to the end…

MR. RUSSERT: You oversee sports.

Question: Why does John McCain, or anyone in Congress, “oversee sports”?

When I find Joseph Lieberman’s comments about the video game “JFK Reloaded”, I’ll post it up, along with a discussion on JFK and misguided conspiracy theories. But where on the world wide web are they?

America is waiting for a message of some sort or another.

They’re selling Jesus Again.

We are the world.

Help the Arbour Tree Foundation planting trees across the nation.

The subtle shift from a “Democratic Versus Republican” dichotemy to a “red State versus blue State” dichotemy, a cynic similar yet completely distinct from me may say, could represent more and more meaningless and minute policy differences between the two parties (Tweedle Dee. Tweedle Dum. You know the drill.), and thus a harder focus on cultural differences. The two parties become nothing more than cultural signifiers, and in many ways accidental ones at that. Call it “identity politics”, remind yourself of what they said about Adlai Stevenson voters, and throw in your chips while you’re at it.

Well, actually what they said about Adlai Stevenson was that he was an Elitist. I have a vague sense that this is where the current attachment for the phrase came from… the Liberal Elites and psuedo-intelligentsia mocking the popular Dwight D Eisenhower’s simple charm. Most famously, he quipped to the comment, “You have the vote of every thinking person!” with “That’s not enough, madam, we need a majority!”

The resultant commentary emitting from the recent election, of the Blue State versus Red State variety, tells me: We’re all elitists now. The faux “Red State populism” attacks on “Blue State elitists” isn’t fooling me. They’re sneering right down at us and our values over there in the Heartland.

It’s not as simple as that, of course. I’m counting roughly two varieties of Red State elitists. The Ann Coulter type, who as far as I can tell has never stepped foot in Rural America — though her denziens (not necessarily her, though I don’t know) love to wax poetic and mythological about “Red State”rs, whose pronouncements on hedonism ring indelibly hollow, and who certainly don’t showcase any “if they were more homespun, they’d be a sweater” characteristics. And, a type I’ll represent with your bible-thumper: isn’t it the height of elitist thinking to think that everyone who is not exactly like you is going to Hell?

The actual Elites, supposedly representing the “just plain folk” of whatever color, are busy laughing. Take the call to “Unite Behind the President” now that the election is over. For what possible reason would I want to do such a thing? And even if I wanted to, I have no clue what that actually entails. It’s just sort of nonsensical. I didn’t know what that meant when that call came out after 9/11, and I sure as hell don’t now. Yet, there it is… out of Bill Clinton’s mouth.

I once said to a friend of mine about three days before the election — and I heard all these terrible things. I said, you know, am I the only person in the entire United States of America who likes both George Bush and John Kerry, who believes they’re both good people, who believes they both love our country and they just see the world differently?

Maybe it’s easy enough for Clinton to make such comments, because at the heart of it he rarely seemed to stand for much, and stare at his 1996 campaign and how he molded the DNC during his presidency and I could swear he preferred a Republican Congress, since politically it offered a good foil with which to work off of.

The conventional wisdom of the current Republican Party — that its heart and soul were borne out Barry Goldwater’s “crusade” — is wrong. Perhaps Goldwater, and the attendant conservatism of Reagan and whatnot — are at its heart (though even Goldwater evolved into a maverick who felt compelled to rip on the religious right and assorted right-wingers who were leaving him cold) — but it’s soul is of a darker complexion. It’s Richard Nixon and Watergate. Ronald Reagan and Iran-Contra. George Bush I and the Savings and Loan Scandal. (And you pretty well have to dunk Bush in with Reagan’s bathwater as well… but then again, a thread of the same names runs through all of these presidents.) And George W Bush and assorted crap I can’t even keep track of anymore. The ideology falls away from the “right to left” map. (After all, Nixon was the last of the “Post New Deal”-era presidents… Ford on down all have been in a Post-Post New Deal de-regulatory phase.) If you doubt that, I present to you Oliver North — Fox News personality, radio talk show host, almost won a Senate seat in 1994, and a Right-wing icon and hero. I present to you a list of various Iran Contra figures who have been plunked right into the current Bush Administration — (remember Poindexter?). And I present to you the very galls of pointing Henry Kissinger, however short-lived, to head the 9/11 Commission.

I am reminded of an online election-months editorial (I think written by Matthew Yglesias), speculating on what would happen to the Republican Party should they lose… and coming up with the idea that they’re a more effective opposition party — in the sense that if your reason for living is to oppose the government, it becomes hard to oppose you as the government, and look at the results: fiscal health under Clinton, not so much under Bush. But realizing that Kerry’s career highlights have been in Investigation, that Edwards represents the constituency of trial lawyers — if they had their act together (which they don’t), the Democratic Party could easily be a natural oppostion party to the the kind of Bid Gummint Nixon-Reagan-Bush represents.

Who the hell knows, though?

I am burning with rage as I write this, and it’s because I have just
learned that a group of evil satanic bastards apparently killed a bunch
of defenceless infants—and ate them.

These children were just babies.

And yet you people out there STILL want to follow satan, eh??

HOW FUCKING STUPID CAN ALL OF YOU BE????
IS THIS THE SORT OF FUCKING EXAMPLE THAT YOU ALL WANT TO FOLLOW????

I really don’t give a shit that half of you hate me for spreading a
warning message about satan, because if anything, right now I have an urge
to grab my sword off the wall and hunt down every single one of you
satanists and hack you all to pieces, because of what these satanists did
to these children.

Do you people understand??

These babies were harmless children and all because these satanic
pricks were brainwashed by satan himself, they had their lives taken from
them.

So if any of you expect me to stop with the messages that I’m sending
out—I say TO HELL WITH ALL OF YOU.

I would rather DIE than stop what I’m doing.

The problem is that the actions of infamous dictators work too well as reference points as to why a particular courses of action are bad.

If a former KGB director destroys direct elections to dumas… maybe there is no such thing as a former KGB agent.

Bush Administration, under the control of the new political hack CIA director, is now ridding the CIA of anybody except political hack yes-men. The doubters of the politicized intelligence and the anti-Chalabists that the neo-cons hate so much… gone. Get rid of any possible whistleblowers — or doubters of the imposed conventional wisdom (most recently — Saddam’s stockpiles of WMDs), and the truth will have to squeeze out in other ways.

Not that it may matter too much. Back to Colin Powell… he wasn’t a “yes man”, but he was willing to play the part of one when one was needed. Maybe it’s best that the Government be completely evil, so that there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind. (Incidentally, Joe Lieberman says he’d go for a cabinet spot in the Bush Administration. I hope Lieberman gets his wish, so we can forgo having him in the Senate’s opposition party caucus.

Back when I was typing out old New York Times articles (from a batch of discarded Library Books), I stumbled at the articles involving the “Iranian Oil Crisis” of 1953. They were hilarious in their incredulity, and provide us with the basic template for the “official story” ahead of every coup America has orchestrated since. (Key point: there’s always a huge part of the mob that is confused, and just waiting to see which way the Wind Blows, because the first attempt has a good chance of misfiring, and you need an explanation for the crowd… in this case, apparently there’s a huge movement of “Royalists”, because there’s nothing a nationalistic populace with a nationalistic leader wants more than a government decided on blood-lines.) But I didn’t know how to post them, and an extensive footnoting of a batch of articles seemed excessive.

Somewhere in the back, the truth came out… as if to telegraph the incident, the New York Times printed the “absurd allegations found in Pravda.”

Keep that in mind as the years unfold.

Perhaps the entirety of Colin Powell’s post-Gulf War career was one giant set-up.

I say that knowing that the delivery of an “Adlai Stevenson Moment” before the UN was one. (And I sensed that coming, the ultimate meaninglessness of the reference, as it played out — in slow motion before my very eyes between the summer of 2002 and the spring of 2003.)

The whole ball of wax. Place him of Clinton’s medium list of candidates for running mate. Write a book, become the consumate “moderate voice” for an American public that loves “moderation”. Play the Eisenhower card in deciding on a party, before assigning yourself as the consummate Eisenhower Republican — “I want to return the party of Lincoln to the Spirit of Lincoln”. The choice of the Americans in 1996 who today gravitate toward Rudy Giuliana and John McCain. Ultimately, don’t run for president. Become the one respected force in a Bush II administration before the International Community…

And blow the whole wad of gum on the “Adlai Stevenson Moment”.

Later, he would fluster backward and forth… call much of the evidence “intentionally misleading”, which falls into obscurity for me to have to remind anyone who listens everytime I have the urge…

Jacques Chirac has rubbed salt into the Tony Blair’s “Reconciliation de Europe” attempts, by pointing out that Blair has gotten nothing out of his US- partnership (nothing with Israel / Palestine, and the Bush II administration ain’t moderating itself.) Thus I ask: What did Colin Powell get for his four years of soldiering service?

Ralph Nader met with John Kerry last Summer. The only that really reverberated out to the public from that meeting was Nader’s request/advice that Kerry stay clear of picking Tom Vilisak as running mate, and choose John Edwards.

Today, Ralph Nader is spear-heading Kerry’s under-the-radar, low-key Election Irregularity Search.

The question arises: What did John Kerry and Ralph Nader talk about?

My sixth grade teacher (perhaps the only middle school teacher I had that I more or less respect), a man who probably did as much as anyone to influence my outlook on civic government, the day after Election Day, gave an characteristically cynical speech to the class about how elections are run. “All nations cheat in their elections.” He then went through a list of shenanigans one associates with Banan Republics, and the workings of past American “Machine Politics” systems — thank you Tammany Hall, Thank you Mr. Daley, and thank you everyone who has suppressed the Black Vote through our nation’s illustrous history. I can’t say exactly how he brought the lecture back to one heralding the civic commitment to voting — “But no matter how rigged the system is, voting is a privilege and right that we should all cherish… and we’re better than Haiti.”

Perhaps there’s a flair of the Bushian attack on Kerry there: “What’s your message: Wrong War, Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Keep Fighting?” Perhaps not. I don’t know.

Dan Savage channeled David Byrne’s lyrics here:

I see the shapes,
I remember from maps.
I see the shoreline.
I see the whitecaps.
A baseball diamond, nice weather down there.
I see the school and the houses where the kids are.
Places to park by the fac’tries and buildings.
Restaunts and bar for later in the evening.
Then we come to the farmlands, and the undeveloped areas.
And I have learned how these things work together.
I see the parkway that passes through them all.
And I have learned how to look at these things and I say,

(chorus)

I wouldn’t live there if you paid me.
I couldn’t live like that, no siree!
I couldn’t do the things the way those people do.
I couldn’t live there if you paid me to.

I guess it’s healthy, I guess the air is clean.
I guess those people have fun with their neighbors and friends.
Look at that kitchen and all of that food.
Look at them eat it’ guess it tastes real good.

They grow it in the farmlands
And they take it to the stores
They put it in the car trunk
And they bring it back home
And I say …

(chorus)

I say, I wouldn’t live there if you paid me.
I couldn’t live like that, no siree!
I couldn’t do the things the way those people do.
I wouldn’t live there if you paid me to.

I’m tired of looking out the windows of the airplane
I’m tired of travelling, I want to be somewhere.
It’s not even worth talking
About those people down there.

Goo goo ga ga ga
Goo goo ga ga ga

I don’t know what “Goo goo ga ga ga” symbolizes, though.

If I’m tempted to give Ariel Sharon a shrug at this time and say, “Only Nixon can go to China”, I snap myself out of it. Substitute the name “Joe McCarthy” for “Nixon” and you get the point. Or, if you will, how does “Only Hitler Can Save the Jews” sound?

Imagine the differences between the reactions an Al Gore would get to those a George W Bush would get if either one seriously embarked on the quest for alternative sources of energy… Al Gore, the proported environmentalist, George W Bush less so.

But if a politico is seriously embarking on a quest toward contrarianism, they will do so. Organized Labor would’ve been better served under a second Georg H W Bush administration than under Clinton. Clinton embarking on “Third Way” DLC politics in regard to NAFTA. Bush would’ve faced actual Democratic Party opposition to the treaty, you see, while Clinton — well, it was at the time the thing that was supposed to save his early faltering presidency, and the Democrats couldn’t afford to watch his early faltering presidency die on them. This is the way the New World Order operates.

Not to damper the Clinton image too much. Whenever you knock Clinton, stop for a second and consider why black Americans poll him as amongst America’s Greatest Presidents… a fact Republicans cringe at, wobble about to come up his supposed “racial divisiveness” and “use of the race card” to forward his agenda.

Personally, I’ll careen more toward the greatness of President Grover Cleveland. But only to make a point. Come on, I dare you to knock Grover Cleveland from this high perch I’ve created for him!

What is my point? I’ll give you the raw ingrediants for the thought train. James Carville says that the problem with the Democratic Party is that they lack a narrative. Bush’s “narrative” is that of “Redemption”, meaning no matter what crises he finds himself in he can be redeemed. AND… I have no idea what “values” means… if, for example, I value “prudence” and vote on the issue of “prudence”, I am not saying to the pollster that I voted on “values.”

I prefer this condensention in the new “Blue V. Red” “Urban V. Rural” Cultural Wars to this condensention. There’s a lot of that going around these days… enough that you begin to suspect we’ve lost sight of the very purpleness of our daily encounters.

Still, I think the people of New England the West Coast oughta hold their Moderate Republican Senators hostage, until the vast Flyover Country is willing to elect moderate Democrats.

But then again, Vermont is a rural state. And it is firmly in place in the calculation here (though I wonder if he arbitrarily worked his way up to 25 states.) Vermont, home of hippy ice cream, Socialist Congressmen, and the birthplace of gay civil unions. Though, keep in mind that Howard Dean was an accidental defender of gay civil unions… he didn’t take the lead, but when the tide rushed in, he stepped out of its way. And, barely survived in his 2000 re-election bid for governor. (The 2000 presidential results show the state further down in Gore’s slate of state’s than Kerry’s slate — then again, Dean wasn’t a national figure yet.)

“Back to the Land” fades into memory.