Why I did not vote Republican (and why you should not): I REMEMBER!

Don't mean to step on anyone's toes, but I thought this was worth posting on this important day.)

November 2, 2010: Votez-Vous, Already!

Hope Nameless Cynic won't mind my posting this extra call in addition to his impassioned and well-written plea -- but the more, the merrier on such an occasion, right? So here goes:

Well, today's the day. I know all y'all on this site will be casting a ballot, and I'm equally certain everyone I know is going to do the same. But if there's any "damn liberal" out there desultorily reading this blog and planning to practice the fine art of not bothering -- you, that's right, you! Winston Smith in Apartment 22B! Buck up, comrade! Just think of what our boys are going through every day on the Malabar Front! -- if you even dream of not voting, you had better wake up and apologize. From what I've been able to gather, AMONG REGISTERED VOTERS, DEMOCRATS LEAD; AMONG LIKELY VOTERS, THEY DON'T.

Ay, there's the rub -- so move your mind and spirit in the direction of the damn-well-gonna voters. If you don't, may some mean English teacher from your grade-school days return in your dreams and compel you to write, "Speaker Boehner," "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell" and "B. Hussein Obama is a Kenyan Moozlum Socialist" on the nearest blackboard five hundred times or until you say Uncle, whichever comes first.

"Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner"
"Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner" "Speaker Boehner"

Now write! I mean it, dammit!

I thought Rachel Maddow's show Monday offered an excellent and mature analysis of the mid-term prospects. Rather than blaming the Dems for not doing enough, she chose to highlight the things they HAD done – plenty of it and pretty good stuff, at that. The list is one that any soon-to-be-outgoing congresspeople can be proud to have moved along. Yes, some of it has been only partial, or frustratingly incremental in its implementation. But that's the way these things often go -- people extend you almost unlimited credit for jabbering and posturing. When you actually do something, half -- or more than half -- of them get madder than a wet hornet and call you a commie pinko. RM reminded us that LBJ took quite a hit in Congressional Dem numbers enacting the Great Society (he gave himself six months to get it on the books, before everyone started to turn against him) and that that's just the nature of political capital -- you've got to use it sometime, and when you do, you're going to get into trouble. It would have been cowardice to hide under the Oval Office desk and do nothing, to plead the necessity of delay, etc.

Hey, if we don't do well today as a party, so be it – if you look at it from the Maddovian and properly historicized perspective, a partial loss may best be construed as something like "noblesse oblige." No good deed goes unpunished, but woe unto you if you hide your talents and your heads in the sand.

Again, please vote and encourage like-minded friends and colleagues to do the same -- don't make the "enthusiasm gap" an unfortunate reality for progressive causes in 2010. Do your part, and whatever happens, you will be able to say you did what you could.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to stroll down to my local church and vote, just as I've done for years. Somehow, they never seem to question the fact that a large extinct reptile is standing in line waiting to cast his ballot, so I'm hoping my luck will hold again this time around. Or maybe a horde of infuriated teabaggers will stomp on my tail, throw rocks at me and drive me from the polling station in fear for my socialist khaki hide…. We shall see.

Vote, or get teabagged - your choice

Haven't voted yet? What the hell is wrong with you?

I believe I've mentioned the media narrative that certain parties (* ahem * GOP) are trying to promote. And if you believe that nonsense, you'll believe anything.

Other people are trying to push the "common wisdom" of voter apathy (and, sadly, there's some evidence to back that up).

And they'll try anything, up to and including trying to push the false narrative that you shouldn't vote to "send a message to Washington."

Let me tell you what happens if the Republicans gain a solid majority. First, they continue to do nothing - that's your tax dollars getting wasted by Republicans who want to prove that government doesn't work.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. On the eve of midterms elections that could make him House Speaker, John Boehner announced, "This is not a time for compromise." His lieutenant Mike Pence (R-IN) echoed that line, declaring that with a new Republican majority "there will be no compromise" with President Obama and the Democrats. Of course, with their record-setting use of the filibuster, unprecedented obstruction of presidential nominees, and unified no votes on almost every major piece of legislation, the past performance of Congressional Republicans is a guarantee of future results.

On the other hand, what can happen if they don't get a stranglehold on the government?

Well, we can get this oligarchical Citizens United ruling changed. Can DADT get canned? A little more difficult - but Obama can just do it unilaterally in his second term. Comprehensive immigration reform? Not going to happen under a Republican.

Now, go to this website (apparently set up by Tony Soprano), find your polling place, and do it! Don't let the idiots win.

"Obama Hasn't Accomplished A Damn Thing": Oh Yeah?

Proudly lifted from NEWS JUNKIE POST:

There are a few excellent resources where the victories of Change and Reform have been assembled on the internet, including the Democratic Change Update (reposted on News Junkie Post), the 244 Accomplishments of Obama, and the Things Obama Has Done page on Facebook.

While the mainstream media narrative has been dominated by right wing and Tea Party talking points, many of the fundamental changes in direction of this country have not received the attention they deserve. Now in one day, the very politicians who venomously opposed these reforms, the very people who want to take America back to the days of Bush are poised to retake the US House of Representatives. They are banking on the short attention span of voters, so share this list liberally!

Following are the "chapter headings" with categories further defined under each heading - by the bucket fulls.
And being good liberals, there are links to back up each and everyone of them.

Banking and Financial Reform
Civil Rights
Commerce, Trade and technology
Conservation
Economy
Education: College
Education: Health of Children
Employment: Jobs
Energy: Green
Energy: Old
Energy: Oil
Foreign Affairs and International Relations
Government Efficiency
Health and Wellness
Health Care Reform (See also Taxes)
Housing
Humanitarianism
Immigration
Infrastructure
Labor
Law and Justice
Medicaid/Medicare/Social Security
Military and National Security
Military Veterans and Families
National Disasters and Emergencies
National Service
Scientific and Medical Research
Space Exploration and Space Station
Taxes
Transparency and Accountability
Recovery, Progress and Change
Miscellaneous



IMPORTANT NOTICE: DEMOCRATS WHO DON'T VOTE ARE NO BETTER THAN YELLOW BLUE DOGS. IF THE CRAZIES WIN, THE ENTIRE COUNTRY LOSES. DINOS ARE TO DEMOCRATS WHAT THE TEA PARTY IS TO LOVE AND HONOR.*

VOTE FOR A DEMOCRAT NEAR YOU

IT IS YOUR PATRIOTIC DUTY

This is just my opinion and may not reflect the views of The Swash Zone. TnLib

On Moderation: KO, Jon Stewart and the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear

I'm usually supportive of Jon Stewart and I like Colbert too, but I want to offer a few thoughts on their rally at the National Mall in Washington, D.C.  And then there are those feisty tweets about the rally by none other than Keith Olbermann, to which I'll refer very briefly below.

The runup to the Restore Sanity event was predicated, I think, on the notion that if we could only get the extremists on both sides to pipe down, we could have a civil conversation about matters that are important to individuals and to the country as a whole. That's unavoidable as a justification of Stewart's brand of comedy -- he can't appear to support one political party or movement exclusively. He talks to people as if they were rational adults with the capacity to appreciate the silliness of political posturing and cheap rhetoric. While I don't for one minute credit the notion that an overwhelming majority of our fellow citizens are rational adults -- too many of them seem poised to vote for manifest imbeciles, ignoramuses, bigots, homophobes, and wild-eyed promoters of secession or worse to make that supposition believable -- if one doesn't posit something similar at least as an ideal or goal, we might as well admit that we can't hope to govern ourselves, that the grand experiment of the Founders was pointless. I don't suppose many of us would be pleased to make such an admission. Churchill's witticism about democracy being "the worst form of government except for all the others" still resonates with us.

One brief segment of Stewart's The Daily Show during the runup was instructive -- a series of vignettes in which six people chosen to go on a bus tour to the rally fail to transform themselves for the cameras into the sort of hacks and ogres whose ranting makes for good political fare. (Nice people may go to the theater just as Ian McKellen says, but they don't make for very good theater themselves.) Staged as it was, the series made Stewart's point: whatever the percentages, many people, at least, aren't ultrapolitical goons or raving fanatics; they're willing to treat their fellow citizens like equals and would prefer not to savage or dehumanize them. They have decent manners, want others to like them, and don't care for confrontation or violence. That characterization applies to the people in my own circle, and honestly, I haven't run into any full-on crazies lately (outside my television screen).

Still, if you don't mind a bit of contradictory meandering, another segment of the same show seems equally instructive: the one in which Stewart's editors put together an audio-video montage of all those supposed extreme-talkers on the left and right, neatly equalizing them. The trouble is, they are not anything like equal. That is where I must agree with the audacious KO, Keith Olbermann and his persnickety tweets about the logic underlying Stewart's rally: Olbermann and Company are not the equivalent of the motor-mouths coming at us from the extreme right. Outspoken liberals sometimes exaggerate and make much of little, but the right-wingers fabricate without conscience or remorse; liberals are in general eminently sane and humane, while the rightists are little more than squirming bags of appetite, irrationality, and, at times, even bloodlust. They betray no signs of consistent lucidity.

In this sense, the Great Middle Hypothesis is flawed because it posits that you can calculate a genuinely moderate position between two extant extremes raving at you through your TV box or laptop screen. If you follow this notion, you'll end up doing rhetorical battle with both hands tied behind your back. If you denounce or mock the patent absurdities of the other side, you'll be labeled an extremist, and of course (as KO reminds us) that other side will by no means "tone it down." It will just scream louder and play the bully with ever greater ferocity. Whenever the far right sounds reasonable, it's merely a tactic, sort of like a boxer's feint just before he clobbers you. Fundamentally, these people's worldview is cruel, paranoid, and illogical; for them, reason never is, nor can it be, anything more than a ruse. We forget that at our peril.

So while I like Jon Stewart and appreciate his wit, his persistent calls for middle-America-style "sanity" and moderation seem to me too easily transformed, tamed, or translated into our fabled liberal wishy-washiness in the face of an ill-intentioned opponent. Nice people are petrified of being labeled radicals, while rightists embrace such definitions. They have that over low-talking, reasonable libs. All of this is why I'm careful not to put too much intellectual stock in the rhetoric of civility and moderation, even though I don't want to dismiss it.

But I'm just a predatory dinosaur with huge, jagged teeth. What do I know about civility? What do you think?

HAPPY CEPHALAWEEN!

ANOTHER SWASH ZONE HALLOWEEN

Artist Ray Villafane began carving pumpkins on a lark for his art students in a small rural school district in Michigan. The hobby changed his life as he gained a following online and unlocked his genuine love of sculpting. Here are images of pumpkin carvings Villafane created over the years:

WHAT A TANGLED WEB WE WEAVE…

I was sent a link to an article (h/t to my brother Frank) that absolutely floored me. I shouldn’t be surprised as I have lately been ruminating over the corporate takeover of America. But this is so blatantly obvious it is shocking. For those of you who followed my previous articles on Arizona Draconia Part 1 and Part 2, I asked the rhetorical question, “What DID prompt the Draconian measures enacted by the Arizona governor and legislature?”

Laura Sullivan, investigative reporter for NPR has given me the answer and it is horrifying. Ms Sullivan has done a thorough job of tracking this story and doing all the background research HERE.

Glen Nichols, city manager of Benson, AZ gives an account of being visited last year by a couple of guys from the private prison industry.

‘Nichols said. "He's a great big huge guy and I equated him to a car salesman."
What he was selling was a prison for women and children who were illegal immigrants.
"They talk [about] how positive this was going to be for the community," Nichols said, "the amount of money that we would realize from each prisoner on a daily rate."’

To his credit, Nichols turned them down but that didn’t curb the enthusiasm of state legislators, including Sen. Russell Pearce (R-Mesa) who was instrumental in drafting Arizona’s immigration legislation.

All of this was orchestrated by a shadowy group called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) whose members include state legislators and powerful corporations like Reynolds American, Exxon and the NRA. This group is also responsible for bringing together Sen. Pearce and Corrections Corporation of America last December in a Washington, DC hotel.
While Sen. Pearce is in “deny, deny, deny” mode, there is mounting evidence that “Thirty of the 36 co-sponsors received donations over the next six months, from prison lobbyists or prison companies — Corrections Corporation of America, Management and Training Corporation and The Geo Group.”

Part 2 of Ms Sullivan’s article is an indepth follow up on ALEC and how it operates.

This is so reminiscent of actions taken by tyrannical regimes through the ages which always resulted in tragic consequences. It is scary and depressing.

Welcome to Corporate Amerika!

I thought it fitting to end this post by paraphrasing George Santayana, a Spanish born AMERICAN author:

“Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.”

ARMAGEDDON REDUX

(Note:  This is an encore post, not by request or popular demand,

but for the sheer hell of it. Tuesday is Election Day. Need I say more.)

Armageddon is getting a bad rap these days, and perhaps it is time to stop the gratuitous and shameless stereotyping of all things apocalyptic. First, I must correct a common misconception. All usages of the word ‘Armageddon’ assume there can only be one final cataclysmic event followed by no other; hence the word is capitalized and singular in every instance. If you don’t believe me, trying turning the word into a lower case plural without getting an error message in rude red MS Word underscore. Wrong, wrong, wrong!

In fact, there is much diversity in the Kingdom of Armageddon whose inhabitants come in all shapes and sizes, all denominations, all affiliations and persuasions. There are armageddons [sic] of the Earth by tremor and magma; armageddons [sic] of the sky that rain meteors and boiled frogs; and armageddons [sic] that emerge from the sea in the stealth of night and leave telltale hickeys.

There is the Armageddon of healthcare reform that will eat your baby and kill your grandmother; the Armageddon of imbedded microchips hidden under folds that beep in the night; the Manchurian Anti-Christ who will seize your guns and confiscate your property; and Armageddons of war, famine, Bird flue, Swine flu, fast foods and soda pop, anorexic Barbie dolls, and rock-n-roll. Finally, don’t forget the End Times of Apocalypstick Palin, Human Mouse Brain O’Donnell, the Swastika Cross Dressing Id-Iott, and ubiquitous Kochroaches everywhere!

Shall we fear the dreaded Armageddon? It lives among us in our towns and villages. It fills our church pews and voting booths. Perhaps we should accept Armageddon as merely one more force of nature that sends human lemmings over the cliff and restores the natural balance. Armageddon is plagiarism masquerading as hyperbole, and the night will sweat with terror as before we rubbed shoulders with delusional nincompoops hearing voices in their heads.

Bring on the dreaded Armageddon!  Why put off the inevitable!  Besides, you can always hedge your bets and invest in Plutonomy Stocks. *

* A hat tip to His Edginess.

John Shelby Spong

There have been times when I've sided with some of our 'founding fathers' in contempt for the religious practitioners who have conflated that poor, unsuccessful, would-be Jewish leader into a re-incarnation of Thor and the mouthpiece for their own miserable and ignorant minds. Ok, it's been more than many times and the Jesus I hear about most often is merely the blunt instrument in the hands of the angry and the ugly and the stupid.

Yes, I've read Dom Crossan and the Jesus Seminar people, but since he still implies that I'm the village idiot for not believing that the man he portrays as a man is more than a man, he only gets a partial pass from me. But then, on occasion, I bump into people like Bishop Shelby Spong who would restore that humanism, that tolerance that was amputated when Christianity was refashioned in the age of Constantine onwards, to its original place.

Of course I disagree profoundly about the nature of things, but about the nature of what we think and do and do to others, he restoreth something in me, even if it's not quite faith.