Henry F. Potter

Seriously.

Rot in Hell - you fetid, vacuous, authoritarian piece of shit.

Yes. We. Did. (Part II)

It's a marathon, not a sprint. But it never to hurts to celebrate the gains - once in a while.

Yes. We. Did.

I'm not one for campaign slogans or their re-writes, but I was part of a huge group-hug last night where, after CNN called the election for Obama, we all cried and shouted that for two minutes, easily. I wish I had some pictures of it, but alas. The memory, burned into my brain, will last me a lifetime - and that wasn't even the most amazing part of my day.

Welp, there goes my vote. . .

What I am about to propose is crossing some lines that we can’t step back across. It’s a two-step solution.

Step One: Bury the corpse of the Democratic Party.
Step Two: Make a corpse of the Republican Party.

- Lighting the Fuse - Stan Goff 2006

That quote has always stuck with me for some reason. Now I know why.

Sorry Senator, you lost a supporter today. (Actually, I'm pretty sure you're gonna, deservedly, lose a shitload of supporters after letting that submissive trash out of the press shop.) Seriously, if you're going to act like a little bitch to, quite possibly, the most loathed minority party in modern history, you have no business calling yourself a leader or being the President of the United States. If I didn't know any better I would have swore that statement was written by a fucking Republican. Good day and good riddance.

UPDATE: I realize there is a difference between arguing principle and arguing politics. The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is not a questionable subsidy or some other form of horse trading common with politics. It's the God damned Fourth Amendment to the Fucking Constitution of this seemingly cursed country! A principle of liberty if there ever was one. This is not comparable to an earmark or some corporate give-away. It is a right, guarantee and liberty enshrined in the very document that makes this society possible.

But since, it appears, immunity is for sale, who do I have to pay and how much so I can smoke a joint without worrying about my legal liability?

Game on!

History was made at the Xcel Energy Center on June 3rd, 2008 as Senator Barack Obama secured the Democratic nomination for President and all but kicked off the general election campaign with a rousing speech in the same arena the Republican Party will be holding it's national convention.

An excerpt from a leaked copy of the speech:

The other side will come here in September and offer a very different set of policies and positions, and that is a debate I look forward to. It is a debate the American people deserve. But what you don't deserve is another election that's governed by fear, and innuendo, and division. What you won't hear from this campaign or this party is the kind of politics that uses religion as a wedge, and patriotism as a bludgeon -- that sees our opponents not as competitors to challenge, but enemies to demonize. Because we may call ourselves Democrats and Republicans, but we are Americans first. We are always Americans first.

Despite what the good Senator from Arizona said tonight, I have seen people of differing views and opinions find common cause many times during my two decades in public life, and I have brought many together myself. I've walked arm-in-arm with community leaders on the South Side of Chicago and watched tensions fade as black, white, and Latino fought together for good jobs and good schools. I've sat across the table from law enforcement and civil rights advocates to reform a criminal justice system that sent thirteen innocent people to death row. And I've worked with friends in the other party to provide more children with health insurance and more working families with a tax break; to curb the spread of nuclear weapons and ensure that the American people know where their tax dollars are being spent; and to reduce the influence of lobbyists who have all too often set the agenda in Washington.

In our country, I have found that this cooperation happens not because we agree on everything, but because behind all the labels and false divisions and categories that define us; beyond all the petty bickering and point-scoring in Washington, Americans are a decent, generous, compassionate people, united by common challenges and common hopes. And every so often, there are moments which call on that fundamental goodness to make this country great again.

So it was for that band of patriots who declared in a Philadelphia hall the formation of a more perfect union; and for all those who gave on the fields of Gettysburg and Antietam their last full measure of devotion to save that same union.

So it was for the Greatest Generation that conquered fear itself, and liberated a continent from tyranny, and made this country home to untold opportunity and prosperity.

So it was for the workers who stood out on the picket lines; the women who shattered glass ceilings; the children who braved a Selma bridge for freedom's cause.

So it has been for every generation that faced down the greatest challenges and the most improbable odds to leave their children a world that's better, and kinder, and more just.

And so it must be for us.

Good luck responding to that, bumbles.

UPDATE: Incertus, sums it up pretty good, imo:

McCain was comatose. Clinton's speech was fine, even though lots of people online are freaking about it, and the CNN talking heads are all in a tizzy because she didn't concede tonight.

But Obama's speech was in another world, and it was about halfway through that it finally hit me why his speech was so much better than Clinton's. Clinton's speech was in a "rally the troops" mode, with a lot of focus on what she fought for and why she'd run and what her vision for the future of the country was. Obama's caught some of that last bit--which is good, since that's what presidential nominees are supposed to do--but the rest of his speech was about people other than himself. He spent a good bit of time praising Clinton, and popping McCain right in the mouth, and then concluded with a turn to the plural. He was inclusive--what we need to do, what the road ahead of us is. And if Obama keeps that up, McCain is dogmeat.

Wow.

So, Presidential hopeful John McCain was thrown a 'social curveball' on Thursday.

[MARTY] PARRISH: This question goes to mental health and mental health care. Previously, I’ve been married to a woman that was verbally abusive to me. Is it true that you called your wife a cunt?[*]

Balls. (I'm not sure what it has to do with "mental health care," however.) If there is an award for the best question asked of a Presidential candidate this election cycle and this doesn't win, the fix is in. Maybe it was not the most appropriate question, but even that is somewhat debatable given the direction this current cycle is headed.

“This is about character,” Parrish said, when reached by telephone afterward. “And in a moment of intemperance, he called his wife the most despicable name a person can call a woman."

Yeah, that's a crowd-pleaser of a word if there ever was one. Either way, it takes a titanium pair to get up in front of mixed company and say that word, never mind in a question to a candidate for the highest office in this cursed land.

MCCAIN: Now, now. You don’t want to … Um, you know that’s the great thing about town hall meetings, sir, but we really don’t, there’s people here who don’t respect that kind of language. So I’ll move on to the next questioner in the back.

Credit where credit is due: That's the one of the classiest non-denial denials I've heard in a long time considering the setting and the question posed to Mr. McCain.

Mr. Parrish, by the way, is a Baptist minister. Make whatever you want of that.

Of course, in our current police security state, Mr. Parrish was briefly detained and questioned by the Secret Service. I'll bet if he had used one of those cute illusory phrases or metaphors, only the tackiness would have been noticed and the Secret Service would not have even cared.




* For the love of Christ, do you think people could actually spell-out the explicative when it relates to the story? Nobody's mother is going to die a thousands deaths because you used (and correctly represented) the word "cunt" in your newspaper article or blog post. Highlighting a specific word that was uttered by someone is not the same as invoking that word in a pejorative fashion. Especially when said word is the whole fuckin' reason you wrote the Goddamn article/post in the first place. Nine out of ten times we're gonna know what you are talking about and actually seeing the letters in the proper sequence is not going to significantly change that fact.

Although, if you want to use the word "cunt" as an invective noun directed at a woman? Well, you're on your own with that.

With that in mind and somewhat without context:

Dear Senator Clinton,

You are becoming a parody of yourself. I won't ask you to stop, because it is not my place to do so. However, when you say this:

“Senator [Barack] Obama is a good man and he is a very talented and gifted man. But I think his comments were elitist and divisive. And the Democratic party has been unfortunately viewed by many people over the last decades as being elitist and out of touch. . . ”

Please do not turn around and weasel around like so:

After a weekend spent making direct appeals to gun owners and church goers, Hillary Clinton said Sunday a query about the last time she fired a gun or attended church services “is not a relevant question in this debate” over Barack Obama’s recent comments on small town Americans.

“We can answer that some other time,” Clinton said at a press conference held in a working class neighborhood here. “This is about what people feel is being said about them. I went to church on Easter. I mean, so?”

Um. . . Can I try? Hey did you know I'm a bona fide professional musician. For real. What's that, you ask? Have I ever made a living as musician? I don't see how that is relevant, I've played trumpet before. Truthfully: I haven't picked up and played a trumpet since college and I am a musician (a pretty damn decent one, in my opinion,) but unfortunately I've never made a real living as one. . . yet.

Those last two sentences are so fucking priceless. You go to church? So? (see what I did there?) Hmm. . . where have a heard another politician use a potentially condescending™ dodge like that? Oh yeah, right here.

When this election campaign started (sometime during the late 80's, it seems,) I sat back and tried not to pick any candidate to declare, essentially to myself, my support for. The three candidates, I guess, I ranked the highest didn't make the final cut. But so goes politics. Even as it became a two person race, I tried to stay objective. But you more than helped make up my mind for me.

As an ex-Democrat, I feel no real loyalty to the party and should you somehow garner, by hook or crook, the nomination. I will not be voting for you. Ralph Nader says thank you. And, like him, I kind of wonder when the Democrats running for office will actually try to appeal to their base, ya know the almost half of the nation that considers itself progressive?

Meanwhile, keep wasting your time trying to prove your poor rural bona fides (start by hiding your tax returns.) Though I'm sure you must know that most of those people you are pandering to with guns and church mixed together wouldn't vote for you if you promised to water-board 'sand niggers' in the Rose Garden every Friday at 5 pm. Frankly, they're not that dumb. Bitter and/or mad? Sure. That dumb? Mostly likely not.

Hopefully, the base of the party (the people who attend the conventions and do the nominating) will come see you for what you really have become. A joke and a sad, pandering parody of former progressive who knows of no bus too small to throw her base under.

You're not being condescending, you're being outlandishly fake. (We're talking John-Boehner-crying fake.) Condescending, however? No. Just an insult to my intelligence.

Sincerely,
jack fate

Just gotta say. . .

The War of the Democrats™ is both is both fascinating and revealing. It's odd when longtime bedfellows finally get a chance to fight about their differences. Viva la flame. . .

Let us begin. . .

One year till teh worldz change. . . for the better. . . hopefully. . . not holding my breath or anything. . .

(h/t: Sadly, No!)

Our Fucked Country.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. - H. L. Mencken

We're fucked. We really are. There's no two-ways about it. When the only candidates speaking any kind of truth to power are considered totally inconsequential and/or unelectable side-shows and the most pandering, vapid, triangulating and/or authority-addicted are the only real candidates, it's only getting worse. It doesn't matter what "image" we decide to elect, we'll all "get it good and hard."

Viva la pointlessness. . .