PUTTIN’ ON AYERS

Ahh, the pleasures of a sunken wreck, where hidden crannies are made for sulking, and long-abandoned galleys are still stocked with un-salvaged wine to challenge the jar-opening skills of an octopus. There is nothing like a good shipwreck to soothe a savage cephalopod.

Your faithful mudsquiggle has returned!  No more self-flagellation (and don’t ask where the sucker-shaped hickeys come from).  I don’t care if my earlier posts were riddled with specious reasoning and ad hominid attacks on hopeless humanoids.  I tried to play fair … but the McHacks are back again … so I changed my mind.  According to rumor, Senator John McCain intends to raise the Ayers issue during the next and last presidential debate.

Here is what a conservative blah-blah-blogger is saying about the Obama-Ayers connection:

Obama is associated with Bill Ayers, a man whose terrorist group killed police officers and bombed the U.S. Capital …

But wasn’t Obama eight years old when this Ayers fellow started the Weather Underground?  If Obama spilled a glass of milk at age eight, not even General Ripper would give a rap about losing precious vital bodily fluids.  But Senator McCain does.  And who exactly is this Ayers fellow? According to the New York Times:

“Since earning a doctorate in education at Columbia in 1987, Mr. Ayers has been a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the author or editor of 15 books, and an advocate of school reform.   “He’s done a lot of good in this city and nationally,” Mayor Richard M. Daley said in an interview this week, explaining that he has long consulted Mr. Ayers on school issues …  “This is 2008,” Mr. Daley said. “People make mistakes. You judge a person by his whole life.”

And this is what Tom Hayden, the former 1960s activist, thinks about the Obama-Ayers connection:

[Hayden] said he saw attempts to link Mr. Obama with bombings and radicalism as “typical campaign shenanigans.”   “If Barack Obama says he’s willing to talk to foreign leaders without preconditions,” Mr. Hayden said, “I can imagine he’d be willing to talk to Bill Ayers about schools. But I think that’s about as far as their relationship goes.”

So Barack Obama and William Ayers crossed paths and served on the same education board, while swarming wingnuts are making a big buzz over little more than a casual association. More than a buzz, the McCain/Palin campaign is using the Ayers trope to turn political rallies into ugly mob scenes with chants of “terrorist,” "traitor,” "kill him” and “off with his head.”   In the year 2008, it is hard to believe there are still people acting like this:



Can you name even ONE wingnut who understands this as inciting mob violence? Can you name even ONE wingnut who has spoken out?

Of course, wingnuts conveniently ignore all evidence they find unsuitable to their cause, especially the language of hate when it benefits their candidate.  Incitements to violence may not bother them, but they bother me. Angry mob scenes remind me of witch burnings, lynchings, pogroms, and 1930s Germany.

Amazing. Wingnuts have even ignored the pleas of their own candidate. Here is McCain trying to undo the damage of his own campaign run amuck:



But here is the rub.  About the McCain supporter who called Obama an “Arab,” she was later interviewed via streaming cell phone by Noah Kunin from The UpTake, Adam Aigner of NBC News, and Dana Bash of CNN:



According to the transcript, the McCain supporter who called Obama an “Arab” got this information from a pamphlet supplied by her local McCain campaign office [my bold]. The implications are disturbing. When will candidate McCain fess up and take responsibility for the worst assault on civil discourse in American history? When will he finally admit to crossing the line and inciting mob violence? How does one equate “Country First” with outright lying?

In this world, there is hardly one politician untouched by six degrees of separation. Somewhere, there will always be a questionable association - whether real or imagined. While the McCain-Palin campaign points a finger at Barack Obama, there are more than enough skeletons in McCain's closet to delight Wes Craven. These include Randy Scheunemann, G. Gordon Liddy, Charles Keating, former Senator Phil Gramm, and dozens of lobbyists and other shady characters too numerous to mention.

But wingnuts will read only what they want to read, hear only what they want to hear, and believe only what they want to believe because their minds are tighter than clams, and they are incapable of acquiring new knowledge or considering other viewpoints.

I grow tired of this post now.  Maybe I'll talk about these shady characters some other time. Meanwhile, your faithful, blue-blooded octopus is hungry.  Is that a tasty McMorsal I see crawling furtive under anemones?

They prosecute liars, don't they?

I checked my e-mail this morning as I sat down to write about the slander du jour from the Straight Talk people. I had read about it at Snopes.com yesterday and there it was, already stinking up my inbox.

It's a picture of Barak Obama holding a copy of Fareed Zakaria's latest best seller The Post American World. For fans of Zakaria, amongst whom I count myself, it isn't necessary to mention that he is not a Muslim extremist, or an extremist of any kind. He was an initial supporter of George Bush's War. He's a moderate by most people's standards, he's the editor of Newsweek International and has been the editor of Foreign Affairs. He hosts a weekly program on CNN every Sunday and has a regular column in Newsweek. He's an American Citizen of Indian descent.

The viral slimebucket now circulating tells us that the book is about "A Muslim's view of a defeated America" and that Obama is the "most liberal nominee to run for President in American History. Neither statement of course, is true.

will anything stop this treasonous, anti-American and indecent attempt to portray Barak Obama as an Islamic radical? Will it take an armed insurrection, mass executions and deportations? Perhaps not. Perhaps all it will take is the resounding defeat at the polls these miserable bastards deserve.

What do you do if you get one of these? Don't just delete it with a sigh - forward it back and tell the senders they are participating in a crime, aiding an illegal takeover of the United States by deceit - use "reply all" to embarrass the sender in from of his friends. Do your part; it's your country under attack.

Do we really know who Obama is? Pretty much. Do we really know who McCain and Palin are? Absoultely: liars, slanderers and libelers by proxy and inciters to riot with no evidence of integrety or conscience by only a burning rage to win, win, win control of our country.

Cross posted from Human Voices

The Question of First Spouses

In the midst of the headlines attached to articles about the findings against S. Palin in "trooper-gate" are increasing revelations about the role of Palin's husband in his wife's governorship of Alaska. Every article I have read presents him as perhaps more than a "just being supportive" spouse. There are allegations of his being present at closed-cabinet meetings, copied on official state e-mails, meeting separately with state official on his wife's behalf, etc.

All of this explores the question of spousehood. What are the boundaries of influence when it comes to spouses and our professional work? If we accept as a given that all spouses naturally talk to each other then it is only natural that spouses are going to occasionally opine about each others' work issues. For the most part - we are ok with this? Yes?

Or no? The questions swirling & twirling around Scott Palin raise 2 questions - does it make a difference when the one spouse is an elected official? And - does it make a difference whether the other spouse is a wife or a husband?

Remember Nancy Reagan? And the snide remarks about her propping up of her husband in his final term? Remember Hilary Clinton as Fiirst Lady? And the snide remarks about her involvement in her husband's administration? HC upped the stakes by not just trying to be a supportive spouse but by actually trying to be a useful First Lady who does more than play hostess to the world. She dared to try to change her job description. And oh how the country breathed a sigh of relief when Laura was elected, but I digress.....

And then there was that woman who challenged Obama for the nomination. We were faced with the prospect of out first FIRST Gentleman. What would he do? Play host to the world? HE was a particular problem because he had actually once had a career of his own & might not want to quietly sit back & play host. Mmmm kinda like Hilary Clinton the lawyer when she was First Lady being asked to play hostess.

Life was a lot easier when FIRST spouses (wives) had no careers of their own.

And now we have Scott Palin participating in his wife's governorship. Appropriate? Is he just trying, like Hilary Clinton in Washington, to redefine his FIRST spousal role? Or is he really just being, well, inappropriate?

I raise these questions because of my own arguably sexist & politically biased reaction to the stories I read today. I can't stand Sarah so I found myself disinclined to like Scott or to be the least bit sympathetic towards him. Then I thought - wait a minute, Squid - don't be unfair. Don't be sexist. Don't apply a different standard to him than you applied when you were sympathetic to Hilary as First Lady. Or the standard you apply when you feel sympathetic about the struggles ahead for Michelle O.

I do actually think, based on the evidence, that Scott P. over-stepped certain boundaries - though given the arrogance of his wife it could be that they just didn't handle the situation as well as they could have if they had been more up-front about the situation. However - I will be interested to see how this continues to be discussed in the media - whether Scott will be discussed in a sexist fashion as were Nancy & Hilary or whether he will be treated more "fairly" as a "just trying to be supportive" spouse.

TRUCE

As some of you know, I was not pleased with myself and decided to put my last post into mothballs.

Update (Sunday, October 12, 2008, 11:45 pm) – I promised to return and explain why.  Ahem. Well here I am, and here goes.

I started my previous post with this:

No matter how hard he tries, Senator McCain can’t seem to disguise his contempt for archrival and nemesis, Barack HUSSEIN Obama. What is going on here? Is bizarre politicking a product of McCain’s handlers or a product of the candidate himself?

When the candidate says, “I approve this message,” this statement should not necessarily be taken at face value.  Candidates take advice from handlers who craft messages, but candidates may not like what they approve.  According to published accounts, operatives of Karl Rove have been managing McCain's campaign.  What we perceive as bizarre politicking may not necessarily be the work of the candidate.  It may be the work of handlers, or maybe a conflict between handlers and candidate.  Since we cannot know for sure, my previous post started with a unwarranted assumption.

My second mistake is the false attribution of motive, namely McCain’s inability to make eye contact with his opponent during the first debate.  I surmised anger and rage were motives.  Here is what a recent visitor to our shores, Straight Talk on McCain, says (please refer to the comment section below):

Watching these videos, you start to get the feeling that even McCain might be starting to wonder, “What kind of monster have I created?” I wonder if McCain, when he is alone and being reflective, asks himself, “Are these people really supporting me because I have good policies, or because they’re racists, bigots, terrified because I have made them terrified because of what I’ve allowed to be said about Obama on my behalf, etc.” I wonder if deep down McCain isn’t just a bit saddened by what his supporters are doing and saying.

This too is a plausible explanation.  Now, here comes the hard part: I leaped from an unwarranted assumption to a false attribution of motive to a definition of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) citing the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV) of the American Psychological Association. What followed were video clips and quotes to support this idea.  In other words, a series of missteps.  But the worst is this:

Let’s say a friend knocks on your door, saying: “I’m so uptight today, I can’t stand it.”  So you retrieve a prescription bottle from your medicine cabinet, and say to your friend: “Here, take a Valium.” It is downright unethical and illegal to share prescription meds.  In other words, don’t play doctor.

Similarly, don’t dabble in pop psychology.  A differential diagnosis should only be determined by a trained, qualified, and licensed practitioner … and only after a face-to-face intake interview.  Mistake number three.

By itself, narcissism is not a psychological disorder.  All of us are narcissists to a degree ... it helps us maintain a healthy sense of self.  Excessive, unrealistic narcissism becomes a disorder when it leads to impairment.  Certainly, politicians must have a higher degree of narcissism to run for public office, and perhaps that is why we loathe them.

My last post was based on invalid constructs.  I don’t blame myself for feeling outrage at the ugly turns of this campaign, but I do blame myself for having a blogger’s temper tantrum and allowing myself to lower standards.

Having made my peace, there is a sunken wreck somewhere in my neighborhood.  Your humbled 8pus wants to go there and hide for awhile.  I’ll come out later.

Mavericky Mavericks Indeed!

Looks like that Palin report has come out. Doesn't look good for Sarah. I think the ruling is a bit complex, but Branchflower finds that she abused her authority, apparently in pressuring Commissioner Monegan to get rid of trooper Wooten. I think he found that the firing of Monegan himself was within her authority, though he found her motivation there somewhat below board. So she violated an Alaska Ethics statute. I'd guess that could result in censure -- really embarrassing stuff, and, well, so much for the "I'm a maverick doodle dandy" line. Oh, they'll keep using it, but nobody's going to buy it anymore.... Sarah looks more like Cheney or Agnew with each passing day. It will be interesting to see how this will play out with McCain, who must be ready to blow his stack just about now.

Good News

Ok, I'm ready to admit that such things can happen.
Science has confirmed our good tidings: a virgin birth in Virginia. Yes, Virginia. Let the word go forth from the Swash Zone.

Behold your new savior: not exactly what you were expecting, but born of a virgin and all we have to do is eat her fin and we shall not die, but be born again
Under the sea
In an octopus's garden
In the shade

Reading the riot act

The riot act - although I've had it read to me many times in a metaphorical sense, I really don't know if Sarah Palin can be prosecuted for inciting people to riot when she stands there and smiles as someone in her audience calls for the Murder of Barak Obama after listening to her call him a terrorist. I do know that the cornered animal metaphor seems more of a literal thing now that the Republicans are facing the prospect that the revolution may soon be over. The mad blood is stirring all over moron America.

I've only heard of a few examples of threatened violence, but I can't get through 10 minutes without hearing accusations that Obama is a Terrorist and that Chriss Dodd and the socialist, commieliberal Democrats are solely responsible for the credit crisis. The animals are angry and they are angry at the targets they are given by the Republican lie campaign. "Joe sixpack" as Sarah likes to call her supporters, really doesn't know who the players are - or doesn't want to know the guilty parties. He wants to blame the bogeyman.

He never heard of Bill Ayers and the group that tried unsuccessfully to stop our last fraudulent war using violence back when Obama was a little kid. He has no idea that the Annenberg Foundation, founded by a right wing Republican is about funding the arts and improving schools, not about Islamic Jihad or about running Obama for president. He would poke his eyes out before reading a list of nefarious characters nearly every candidate including McCain has been linked to. Basically, the issue which in the last couple of days has become the central argument - or perhaps the central distraction is a distorted fabrication of no importance. This disgusting insanity, worthy of the most disgusting dictators and tyrants of history, is effective enough that I fear Obama's life is in danger. I know our country is in danger.

Whether or not anyone would contemplate an assassination if they hadn't listened to Palin's hate session, it certainly doesn't speak well for a prospective leader to stand by and smile while it happens rather than take a stand for decency and the law. Then again, what do you expect from someone who idolizes a man who had an innocent woman shot at and run out of town for being a witch? It doesn't speak well for the "uniter" image the bitter and angry old McCain wants to project. That he didn't comment, that he hasn't given us a glimpse of leadership during this financial catastrophe, no calm voice, no steady hand on the helm, but only snarling, whining and petulant accusations, speaks very poorly for him and his character. That he won't admit that the policies that got us here have been the main mission of the Republicans for decades and won't admit his part in it; that he won't admonish Palin for raising a lynch mob are more damning than his empty promises of "I know how to fix it."

If there is any consolation in the collapse of America, it has to be that it will take these evil trolls down with it; bloody hands and forked tongues and all.

Cross posted from Human Voices

Sex For Money / Money For Sex

[A non-campaign related post - forgive me]

QUESTION: If a woman, say a teacher or a computer programmer or a nurse, decides to moonlight on the side in order to supplement her income – is this wrong? Don’t lots of people hold down second jobs or supplementary part-time jobs? Nothing wrong in that, right? In this economy it is also entirely plausible to think that such a woman might need the extra money, times being what they are.

OK – so here’s wrinkle – if the moonlighting, supplemental income job involves selling sex, is it suddenly wrong? And, if so, why?

Within this given scenario the woman doesn’t seem like your “ordinary” prostitute, does she? She’s not walking the streets. She’s not strung out on drugs. She’s not caught up in a cycle of abuse with a pimp. She’s not bringing loser Johns back to her apartment which she shares with her destitute kids.

So…… then what’s the problem with such moonlighting?

I read a news story recently about a sting operation by cops against on-line prostitution. The story recounted how the cops were surprised by the “otherwise respectability” of the women they arrested. This caused me to raise an eyebrow. On-line pornography implies that the “prostitutes” own computers or at least have easy access to them and know how to use them. Street-walking prostitutes most likely don’t. Everything about the operation described in the news story clearly seemed to point to the fact that the cops knew, or should have known, that they were dealing with a different “class” of women.

So why arrest them & slap them with a criminal record that will haunt their lives forever? Not to be classist – but the usual, moralistic arguments against street-walking prostitutes are generally laced with supposed concerns about drug dealing, physical abuse & children at risk. Such moral high-grounding cloaks the tricky, socially constructed morality of the issue with the impression of more urgent concerns. It prevents us from noticing that – even though sex takes at least two – it is usually the woman arrested (punished), NOT the man. Johns are occasionally arrested, but in puny numbers compared to the women.

This gender inequality was repeated with this on-line sting operation. The “Johns” were the cops so only women were arrested. Hint to the legal authorities - Supply & demand. Arresting prostitutes does not stop men from seeking to buy sex.

I do not know all of the particulars of this recent event. Perhaps there were abusive pimps involved – something that arguably these prostitutes needed to be “saved” from. All I know is that when I read the story it bugged me somehow. Made me twitch. Mostly women getting arrested. Again. For a crime that involves male perpetrators. AND - without the usual moral-high-grounding scenario giving us the excuse that these “poor” women need to be saved from evil, preying forces beyond their control. And – that – I think – is the biggest red flag here. If the sex is consensual (no pimps or coercion) - between two adults – how does the private exchanging of money suddenly make it our public problem? Why do we suddenly have the right to invade life-style choices? And, besides, the truth is that the arresting of prostitutes is really about punishing prostitutes (WOMEN), NOT saving them. What did these “otherwise respectable” women need to be saved from really?

Don’t get me wrong. I am not personally contemplating a career change in the direction of prostitution nor am I declaring that I think it’s a great idea. It’s not. In most instances I do think it exploits women badly – very badly. However – I also think that the way our country legally handles the situation also exploits women by not fairly going after Johns – the exploiters - as aggressively as the prostitutes. Also – wouldn’t it be nice if societal attitudes towards women & sex changed so that men would no longer be preying on the prostitutes who truly are down & out & desperate in the first place?! In other words – if we as a society truly believe that prostitution is a practice that needs to be shut down, can we at least PLEASE stop punishing only half of the problem?

Gender Biased, Morality Policing always makes me twitch.

The Post-Debate View from the Jurassic Section of the Blogosphere

I thought the second debate was a low-energy snooze-inducer, though on the whole I suppose the “Ambien ad” quality works to Obama’s advantage since all he needed to do was avoid making a chucklehead of himself. McCain needed to make Obama look like a child, and he failed to do it. I don't buy the HuffPo screaming headlines about the cosmic scale of McCain's wretched performance, nor do I quite buy the charges that his use of the words “that one” to refer to Obama sinks to the level of a phrase such as, say, “you people.” It may indicate something less than wonderful, but I don't think it means McCain is a sheet-wearing chief pointy-head.

Anyhow, both candidates seemed somber. The audience was the same way, and for the most part they seemed like window dressing because Brokaw took over their supposed function.

I was mildly annoyed at the outset – someone asked Obama a question that I recall being specifically about pensioners, and he responded with generalities about “the middle class.” Depressingly like the usual question-response pattern, which goes like this:

Q. What specifically are you planning to do about issue x, which affects me personally?

A. Well, Gerald, thanks for your question. When I am president, we are going to deal with issue x, which is all about the middle class. Yep, we’re gonna nail that issue x. Gonna get it right, just let the middle class wait and see. In fact, Middle Class™—I mean Gerald—we’re going to provide health care access by providing access to health care, and we’ll damn sure keep social security solvent by keeping social security solvent.

Of course I’m being a snarkosaurus, and well know I that it’s difficult to respond to questions the exact parameters of which you don’t know in advance. It took me years as an educator really to learn how to listen to what my students are saying. I couldn’t do it at all when I started out. I still don’t always have the “presence of mind” that I could wish, even when not responding to questions or comments. And I also know that for politicians, offering extremely specific answers can backfire, offending one group while pleasing others, and so forth. But I think candidates need to do better than promising to fix the economy by fixing the economy. Well, DUH!

Anyhow, while I don’t share the enthusiasm of, say, Andrew Sullivan, I suppose I’d have to say that tonight probably helped Barack. Some of his responses were “spot on.” He has been rising steadily in the polls to the point where it’s hard to see how he can lose, short of failing the Edwin Edwards test: that is, “getting caught with a dead woman or a live boy.” (No doubt Sarah Palin will accuse him of both in the next week or two, but nobody with half a brain listens to Her Moosieness by now.) And even Edwards didn’t fail the Edwards test – no, I think they got him on racketeering charges.

Pigs, arrows and outrageous fortune

That giant oinking sound you hear is all the pork being herded into the Bailout Corral. Even though the plan passed last week has been so brilliantly successful at transferring all that nasty smelling bad mortgage debt to the Taxpayer Government, the Fed is planning to make us a present of bad commercial paper as well. There just wasn't enough pork in the original deal.

You can't expect to have a barbecue of wall street lobbyist proportions without big chunks of pork and little scraps like the tax relief for manufacturers of wooden arrows designed for use by children. You have to admit that their plight is central to the economic health of all of us. Who knows, your ex-broker may be making wooden arrows designed for use by children before the week is out.

Don't worry about it. All of us are going to hell or to Alaska in the next few months according to Sarah "ya betcha" Palin. She has a plan for everything.